Ephesus layout and route schematic

Lysimachus’s walls followed the crest of Bülbüldağ and enclosed a fortified area more than 4 km long and 2 km wide¹⁴. Inside them the streets of the Hellenistic town met at right angles on a regular plan¹⁵.

Curetes Street ignores that plan. It crosses the grid at a slant, and archaeologists read this as a sign that the route is older than the grid and served as a processional way for Artemis¹⁶. It is the one line worth fixing in mind before a visit: almost everything in the ancient city either stands on it or is reached from one of its ends.

The walled city is only one part of what UNESCO protects. The 2015 inscription drew the property as four separate components: the prehistoric mound of Çukuriçi Höyük (1.5 ha), the ancient city (614.76 ha), Ayasuluk Hill with the Artemision and the medieval town (45.82 ha), and the House of the Virgin Mary (0.55 ha)⁹. Together they come to 662.62 ha, surrounded by a buffer zone of 1,246.3 ha¹⁷.

Ephesus has two entrances, each with a ticket office: the Lower Gate to the north, on the Selçuk side, and the Upper Gate to the south⁸. Fees, hours and restoration closures change often, so they are kept on the tickets and opening hours page with the date each was checked. The upper entrance often borrows the name of the Magnesian Gate⁸, yet the real gate, the largest in the city, is about 300 m further south on the old road to Magnesia¹⁸.

What separates the two ends on the ground is height. Curetes Street alone drops about 20 m, from around 30 m above sea level at the top to less than 10 m by the library¹⁰. Starting at the Upper Gate therefore means walking downhill for most of the route, which is worth weighing when planning a visit to Ephesus.

The Magnesian Gate was long taken to be part of Lysimachus’s fortifications, one of several long-repeated errors about Ephesus. J. T. Wood uncovered it in 1869, but only the digging of 2008–09 established that it was built around 100 BC¹⁸.

State Agora. In its Roman form the square measured about 58 × 155 m, with halls on its sides¹⁹. The north side was closed by the Basilike Stoa, a hall of some 167 m with bulls’ heads carved on its Ionic capitals, which C. Sextilius Pollio and his family dedicated in AD 11²⁰. A small temple occupied the centre. The old label “Temple of Isis” has given way to a more cautious reading as an Augustan sanctuary, possibly for the deified Julius Caesar and Roma, or for Augustus himself²¹.

Bouleuterion. Next to the agora sits a small theatre often called the Odeon. It was in fact the council house, put up around AD 150 by P. Vedius Antoninus and probably roofed²², with estimated seating for 1,400 to 1,500²³.

Prytaneion. Here the city’s executive met and the sacred hearth of Hestia burned. At Ephesus it was kept by the Curetes, priests whose names were cut into the building’s columns²⁴. Franz Miltner found the Prytaneion in 1955 and identified it a year later²⁵. Marble statues of Artemis of Ephesus had been buried inside, the Colossal and the Beautiful Artemis among them; both are now in the Ephesus Museum at Selçuk²⁶.

Temple of the Sebastoi. Once called the Temple of Domitian, it was dedicated in AD 89/90, and with it Ephesus became neokoros, official temple warden of the emperors, for the first time²⁷. It rose on an artificial terrace held up by vaulted substructures²⁸.

Memmius and Pollio monuments. Gaius Memmius, a grandson of the dictator Sulla, built the Memmius Monument under Augustus to honour three generations of his family²⁹. The Pollio Monument, erected in AD 97³⁰, commemorates the same C. Sextilius Pollio who paid for the Basilike Stoa and an aqueduct³¹. The Polyphemus group displayed there first stood in the pediment of the agora temple³². The Hydreion, a fountain by Domitian Square, carries an inscription dating it to AD 198–211³³.

Curetes Street starts at the Hercules Gate and ends at the library⁵. Ephesians probably knew it as the Embolos, meaning “wedge”. The name used today was borrowed from inscribed lists of Curetes priests, carved originally for the Prytaneion and later reused as building stone along the street³⁴. In its final phase the paving was 6–8 m wide, flanked by colonnaded halls 3.5–5 m deep, on a gradient of about 10%¹⁰.

Hercules Gate. The gate at the top dates from late antiquity. It narrowed the street and closed it to carts, and its reliefs of Hercules in his lion skin are reused 2nd-century pieces³⁵.

Nymphaeum of Trajan. Ti. Claudius Aristion and his wife Julia Lydia Laterane dedicated the fountain to Artemis and Trajan, and funded a water conduit 210 stadia long as well³⁶. Its stage-like front stood about 9.5 m tall behind a basin almost 12 m long; in the middle niche was a statue of Trajan around 4 m high, judging by the one foot that survives³⁷.

Temple of Hadrian. The dedication of the Temple of Hadrian, made by Publius Quintilius Valens Varius with his wife and daughter, names Artemis, Hadrian and the Ephesian people³⁸. Temple and bath building behind it were designed as a pair³⁹.

Scholastica Baths and the latrine. The Varius Baths and the Scholastica Baths are the same complex. Varius built it around the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, and a Christian woman named Scholastica restored it in the 4th or 5th⁴⁰; her seated statue, now without its head, still occupies a niche⁴¹. A 1st-century public latrine lies close to where Curetes Street meets Marble Street, its marble seats set above a flushing channel that ran round an open central pool⁴².

Terrace Houses. On the slope above the street, Terrace House 2 is a block of about 4,000 m²⁴³ containing seven homes, each a peristyle house stepped over three terraces⁴⁴. The Terrace Houses were roofed over for protection in 1999/2000⁴⁵.

Octagon and Heroon. The Octagon, an eight-sided marble tomb, was built in the late 1st century BC; its square base is all that survives where it stood⁴⁶. Next to it is the so-called Heroon of Androklos, a U-shaped Hellenistic structure converted later into a fountain⁴⁷.

Curetes Street ends at the Library of Celsus, built as the memorial of Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, who lies in a chamber under its apse⁴⁸⁴⁹. Its doors and windows open to the east⁵⁰, so the façade catches the morning sun.

Right next to the library, at the corner of the Commercial Agora, stands the triple Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates, built in 4/3 BC⁵¹. Between 1980 and 1989 it was rebuilt, mostly from its own ancient blocks⁵².

The Commercial or Tetragonos Agora was the city’s main market: close to square, about 111 m a side, entered by three gates and lined with around 100 shops, workshops and storerooms behind its colonnades⁵³. Its builders set it out in the 3rd century BC on top of an 8th-century BC village and cemetery⁵⁴.

Great Theatre. Marble Street comes out at the Great Theatre, the theatre of the silversmiths’ riot in Acts 19⁵⁵. After its Roman enlargements the auditorium was nearly 150 m across⁵⁶.

Harbour Street. The Arkadiane, the colonnaded avenue from theatre to harbour, takes its name from the emperor Arcadius (395–408), who rebuilt it⁷. Its length is variously put at 500 to 570 m, with a carriageway of roughly 11 m⁵⁷.

The harbour. Three gates of the late 1st or early 2nd century AD led in from the quay⁵⁸. The basin itself silted up long ago and is now a small marshy lake⁵⁹.

Baths and gymnasia. Of all the Roman baths visible at Ephesus, the Harbour Baths are the largest, and work on them probably started under Domitian⁶⁰. Beside them lay the Halls of Verulanus, an exercise court with colonnades about 200 × 240 m⁶¹. The Theatre Gymnasium, on Harbour Street by the theatre, has only been partly dug⁶². The Vedius Gymnasium, one of four large bath-gymnasia in the city, spread over almost 13,000 m² and opened in AD 147–149⁶³.

Stadium. Below Panayırdağ lies the stadium, rebuilt under Nero⁶⁴. Late in the Roman period its rounded east end was walled off to make an arena for gladiators and animal fights⁶⁵.

Church of Mary. Among the monuments of sacred Ephesus, this church was fitted into the long south hall of the Olympieion, the harbour-side precinct of Zeus Olympios and Hadrian; the hall is about 263 × 30 m⁶⁶. Tradition makes it the venue of the Council of Ephesus in 431, but that attribution and the church’s own date are both still argued over⁶⁷.

“St Paul’s Prison”. A tower of the Hellenistic wall on a hill by the old harbour goes by this name⁶⁸. The label is folklore: nothing in Acts or in the archaeology ties Paul’s time in Ephesus to the building⁶⁹.

Several of the places that bring people to the Ephesus area are outside the ancient city, a few within walking distance, others a drive away.

Cave of the Seven Sleepers. A late-antique cemetery and cave church tied to the legend sit on the eastern slope of Panayırdağ⁷⁰. Ephesus is not the only claimant: sites in Jordan, and at Tarsus and Afşin in Turkey, tell the same story⁷¹. There is no ticket office, and according to guide sources the fence gate is often locked⁷².

Gladiator cemetery. Discovered in 1993, it lies about 300 m east of the stadium, at the northern foot of Panayırdağ⁷³.

Grotto of St Paul. This little cave church sits on the north slope of Bülbüldağ, south of the city⁷⁴. Ordinary visitors cannot go in; a visit needs permission in advance from the museum directorate at Selçuk⁷⁵.

The Artemision and Ayasuluk. The Temple of Artemis stood outside Lysimachus’s walls, near the old settlement the Ephesians had left³, and a road tied temple and city together. Around AD 104 a Roman benefactor, C. Vibius Salutaris, endowed a procession of gold and silver images that set out from the Artemision, entered the city by the Magnesian Gate on its way to the theatre, and returned through the Coressian Gate⁷⁶. Today a single column, rebuilt from odd fragments, stands on the temple site⁷⁷. On Ayasuluk Hill above Selçuk, next to the Byzantine fortress, lies Justinian’s Basilica of St John, begun in the 530s over the grave tradition gives to the apostle⁷⁸. Below the hill, the İsa Bey Mosque dates from 1375⁷⁹.

House of the Virgin Mary. The House of the Virgin Mary stands high on the mountainside, around 380 m up and some 5 km south of the ruins⁸⁰. By road it is 5 km from the Upper Gate and 11 km from the Lower Gate¹³.

Çukuriçi Höyük. This prehistoric mound is a World Heritage component in its own right⁸¹. In the Neolithic it stood roughly 1.5 km from the coast, beside a lagoon⁸².

Belevi Mausoleum. An early Hellenistic tomb, second in size in Anatolia only to the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, it stands 14 km north-east of Ephesus⁸³.

Şirince. The hill village is about 8 km east of Selçuk⁸⁴.

The delta of the Küçük Menderes (in antiquity the Cayster) has been advancing west for about seven thousand years⁸⁷, and the harbour of Ephesus is now a marsh well inland⁵⁹.

That retreat drew the map. When Lysimachus moved the city, the old harbour near the Artemision was already choking with silt, while the bay below Pion and Preon still offered ships a deep anchorage⁸⁸. Roman engineers later dredged the basin below the city and, as the land kept growing, dug a long canal west towards open water⁸⁹. Measured from the basin, that canal was about 4 km long, and in the Byzantine period a further channel of roughly 3 km carried it on to the present shoreline⁹⁰.

Any single figure for the distance from the ruins to the sea therefore depends on the point chosen; the shifting coast, harbour by harbour, is traced in where Ephesus is.