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Mr Ephesus

Around Ephesus

Around Ephesus

The history of Ephesus did not stop at the ticketed ruins. Ayasuluk Hill carries the Basilica of St John and the later citadel; the Isa Bey Mosque marks the fourteenth-century town; Selcuk’s museum keeps objects separated from their original buildings; and nearby Şirince preserves the imprint of nineteenth-century settlement and the 1923 population exchange.

10 guides to the surrounding region

The Isa Bey Mosque in Selcuk seen from above, with the surrounding plain behind it.

Begin around Selcuk

The town beside the archaeological site and the places within it.

  • Local base

    Selcuk, the Town Beside Ephesus

    Selcuk is the town next to the archaeological site of Ephesus, and the base for the Ephesus Museum, the Ayasuluk hill, the Basilica of St John and the remains of the Temple of Artemis.

  • The Isa Bey Mosque in Selcuk seen from above, with the surrounding plain behind it.

    Later Selcuk

    Isa Bey Mosque, Selcuk

    The Isa Bey Mosque below the Ayasuluk hill in Selcuk: a 14th-century Anatolian beylik mosque built in 1375, its courtyard and prayer hall, and its place among the monuments around Ephesus.

  • Hill village

    Sirince Village

    Sirince, the hill village above Selcuk: its old stone-and-timber houses, its former Greek Orthodox church, the story behind its name, and what a visit from the Ephesus area involves.

The wider ancient landscape

Ancient cities and landscapes of western Anatolia beyond Ephesus.

  • Settlement layers and Homer

    Troy (Troia) Archaeological Site

    Explore Troy as an excavated settlement mound near the Dardanelles, separating its long archaeological sequence from Homeric tradition and later Greek and Roman Ilion.

  • Thermal landscape

    Pamukkale and Hierapolis

    Pamukkale's white travertine terraces and the ancient city of Hierapolis above them: a single UNESCO World Heritage site inland from Ephesus, and what a visit involves.

  • Hellenistic capital

    Pergamon (Bergama)

    Read Pergamon through its hilltop Attalid capital, Roman Asclepieion and the later Byzantine and Ottoman layers preserved in modern Bergama's cultural landscape.

  • Lydian capital

    Sardis (Sart)

    Sardis, the Lydian capital at modern Sart: the gymnasium and synagogue complex, the temple of Artemis, the Bin Tepe burial mounds, and its place among the seven churches of Revelation.

Across Anatolia

Imperial Istanbul and the rock-cut cultural landscape of central Anatolia.

  • Imperial city and Bosphorus

    Istanbul: Historic Peninsula and Bosphorus

    Read Istanbul through the Bosphorus, Golden Horn and Historic Peninsula, where Eastern Roman and Ottoman monuments share one continually inhabited city.

  • Architecture and changing use

    Hagia Sophia in Istanbul

    Understand Hagia Sophia's sixth-century architecture and its history as a church, mosque, museum and active mosque within Istanbul's World Heritage landscape.

  • Rock-cut landscape

    Cappadocia: Landscape and Rock-Cut Heritage

    Understand Cappadocia as a volcanic and erosional landscape shaped by rock-cut churches, Byzantine art, cave settlements and underground towns in central Anatolia.

Official sources

Current visitor information — opening hours, tickets and closures — is published by the site authorities, not by us.

Continue exploring the Ephesus guide