The city of Izmir is the third largest in modern Turkey, and is located on the Mediterranean coast at the far western extremity of Anatolia. It is today a popular Aegean and Mediterranean cruise ship port, and is the usual entry for the ancient cities of Ephesus and Pergamon. Prehistoric settlements from as early as 7000 BCE have been excavated, and artifacts have been found from the third millennium BCE that coincide with the first city of Troy. The city was known in Greek as Smyrna, and had extensive Hellenic settlement as well; Smyrna is believed to have been the birthplace of Homer. After conquest, Izmir was rebuilt by Alexander the Great and prospered under Roman rule from the 1st century CE until the separation of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires. Visitors to today’s Izmir can see artifacts of life from the Stone Age to the Byzantine Empire and later.
The Yeşilova mound or höyükwas discovered in an outer district of Izmir in 2003 and excavated in 2004, and is what remains of a Neolithic settlement from about 6500 BCE. After habitation in the Bronze Age, the area was used as a cemetery. Rock carvings about 50 km distant from this show what the area was like when ruled by the Hittites, not the Hittites of the Bible but a people from central Anatolia who reached the coast in the second millennium BCE and called themselves Hatti.
The Greeks called the city Smyrna, and Homer is believed to have been born there in the 7th or 8th century BCE, on the River Meles about which he later wrote. The Greek settlement of Old Smyrna has been restored, and artifacts related to the olive industry and statues from the Altar of Zeus and the Temple of Athena can now be seen. The first vineyards and brewery and other remains from a third millennium BCE settlement contemporary with Troy can be found in the Bayraklı quarter of Izmir.
Nearby Ephesus contains the largest collection of Roman ruins in the eastern Mediterranean, presently only 15 to 20 per cent excavated. These date from the time of Augustus, when Ephesus was for a time second only to Rome, and include the Temple of Artemis, the Library of Celsus and an amphitheater that seated 25,000. The house in which the Virgin Mary is believed to have spent her last days, and the Church of Mary where an ecumenical council confirmed the Nicene creed in 431, are sites of great interest to Christian pilgrims.
Izmir is thus a place where visitors can see at least seven millennia of history, beginning in prehistoric times and ending in modern Turkey.