Its location was centred upon the remarkable and copious hot springs in classical Phrygia in southwestern Anatolia. Its extensive remains are adjacent to modern Pamukkale in Turkey.
The hot springs have been used as a spa since at least the 2nd century BC, with many patrons retiring or dying there as evidenced by the large necropolis filled with tombs, most famously that of Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, which bears a relief depicting the earliest known example of a crank and rod mechanism, and the Tomb of Philip the Apostle.
It was added as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.
In 2016, excavations were carried out in the Northern Necropolis area of Hierapolis at the entrance of the Archaeological Park by the archaeologists from Denizli Hierapolis Archeology Museum.
During these excavations, Iron Age settlement structures were unearthed for the first time in Hierapolis. There are round huts belonging to a large settlement believed to cover the side of the Çökelez Mountain overlooking the wide plain of the Lykos River. Before the Greek colony was established the cult area dedicated to Cybele around a cave and the surrounding rocks was the center of the archaic settlement.
Ancient Hieropolis
The Phrygians built a temple dedicated to the mother goddess Cybele on the site probably in the first half of the 7th century BC. This temple, originally used by the indigenous communities living in the Lykos valley would later form the center of Hierapolis. When the Greek colonists arrived and built the city on the pre-existing pattern of settlement, the ancient cult of Cybele was gradually assimilated into the Greek religion.
From well before the time of the Greek colonization, the area was seen as a gateway to the underworld and a place of communication with the underworld deities because of the toxic gasses that emerge from a hot spring inside the cave.
According to Strabon and Damascius the temple built on top of the cave was linked to the mother goddess Cybele. After the process of assimilation into Greek culture, it was associated with Hades (Pluton) and Persephone instead of Cybele and the temple was named Plutonium.
Hierapolis was founded as a thermal spa early in the 2nd century BC within the sphere of the Seleucid Empire. Antiochus the Great sent 2,000 Jewish families to Lydia and Phrygia from Babylon and Mesopotamia, later joined by more from Judea. The Jewish congregation grew in Hierapolis and has been estimated as high as 50,000 in 62 BC.
The city was expanded with the booty from the 190 BC Battle of Magnesia where Antiochus the Great was defeated by the Roman ally Eumenes II. Following the Treaty of Apamea ending the Syrian War, Eumenes annexed much of Asia Minor, including Hierapolis.
Hierapolis became a healing centre where doctors used the thermal springs as a treatment for their patients.
The city began minting bronze coins in the 2nd century BC. These coins give the name Hieropolis. It remains unclear whether this name referred to the original temple (ἱερόν, hieron) or honoured Hiera, the wife of Telephus, son of Heracles and the Mysian princess Auge, the supposed founder of Pergamon’s Attalid dynasty.
This name eventually changed into Hierapolis (“holy city”), according to the Byzantine geographer Stephanus on account of its large number of temples.
The Main Street and the gates
The Hellenistic city was built on a grid with streets running parallel or perpendicular to the main thoroughfare. This main street ran from north to south close to a cliff with the travertine terraces. It was about 1,500 metres long and 13.5 metres wide and was bordered on both sides by an arcade. At both ends of the main street, there was a monumental gate flanked by square towers built of massive blocks of stone. The side streets were about 3 metres wide. Another gate, the Domitian Gate, was close to the northern city gate. This triumphal arch flanked by circular towers consists of three arches and was built by the proconsul Julius Frontinus (84–86).
The town was repeatedly rebuilt following major earthquakes and improved prior to various imperial visits to the healing springs. In addition, Septimius Severus had a number of new buildings constructed in Hierapolis in gratitude for his secretary Antipater, a native of Hierapolis who also tutored the emperor’s two sons.
Frontinus Gate
This is the monumental entrance to the Roman city and leads onto the large plateia, 14 m wide, which crosses the whole settlement, exiting a gate at the opposite side, to connect with the road that goes to Laodicea on the Lykos and then Colossae.
It is worth admiring the well preserved structure with three openings, in carefully squared travertine blocks, with elegant arches decorated with a simple cornice moulding, flanked by two round towers that recall Hellenistic city Gates such as that of the Pamphilian city of Perge, near Antalya.
North Byzantine Gate
The north gate forms part of a fortification system built at Hierapolis in Theodosian times (late 4th century) and is its monumental entrance, matched by a symmetrical gate to the south of the city.
Built of reused material from the demolition of the Agora, it is flanked by two square towers, as in other nearby cities such as Blaundus. Four large marble brackets with heads of lions, of panther and of a Gorgon were found collapsed in front of the gate. They are quite expressive and, whilst belonging to antique buildings, were evidently reused as apotropaic elements on the two sides of the gate so as to ward off evil influence.
Theatre
The Theatre was probably constructed under the reign of Hadrian after the earthquake of 60 AD. The facade is 300 feet long, the full extent of which remains standing. In the cavea there are 50 rows of seats divided into seven parts by eight intermediate stairways. The diazoma, which divided the cavea into two, was entered by two vaulted passages (the vomitoria). There is an Imperial loge at the middle of the cavea and a 6-foot-high (1.83 m) wall surrounding the orchestra.
During the reign of Septimius Severus at the beginning of the 3rd century, the old scaenae frons was replaced by a new, more monumental one, organized on three storeys and flanked by two imposing side entry buildings. Sculptural reliefs, displaying mythological subjects, were placed on the different storeys, while dedicatory inscriptions ran along the entablatures. The transformation was outstanding due to the size of the structures, the high quality of workmanship and materials employed.
The auditorium was rebuilt as well, substituting the ancient limestone seats with others in marble, and realizing a high podium on the orchestra in order to adapt the building to the organization of venationes and gladiator schools.
An earthquake in Hierapolis in the 7th century caused the collapse of the entire building as well as the ultimate abandonment of the city. Since the 18th century, the monument’s striking ruins have become a recurrent theme in European travellers’ descriptions and engravings.
Septimius Severus is portrayed in a relief together with his wife Julia Domna, his two sons Caracalla and Geta, and the god Jupiter. In AD 352, the orchestra was probably transformed into an arena for aquatic shows, which had become fashionable. The stage, which is 12 ft high, had five doors and six niches. In front of these there were ten marble columns, decorated with alternate rectilinear and curved segments. The wall behind the scene was decorated with three rows of columns one behind another. The columns on the front row do not have grooves and stood on octagonal bases.
The auditorium consisted of stacked seating with a capacity of 15,000 and was bisected by the main aisle. It featured an imperial box. The lower part originally had twenty rows and the upper part twenty five, but only thirty rows altogether have survived. The auditorium is segmented into nine aisles by means of eight vertical passageways with steps. The proscenium consisted of two stories with ornately decorated niches to the sides. Several statues, reliefs (including depictions of Apollo, Dionysus, and Diana), and decorative elements have been excavated by the Italian archaeological team and can be seen in the local museum.
The theatre has been the object of important restorations between 2004 and 2014.
Temple of Apollo
A temple was raised to Apollo Lairbenos, the town’s principal god during the late Hellenistic period. This Apollo was linked to the ancient Anatolian sun god Lairbenos and the god of oracles Kareios. The site also included temples or shrines to Cybele, Artemis, Pluto, and Poseidon. Now only the foundations of the Hellenistic temple remain. The temple stood within a peribolos (15 by 20 metres) in Doric style.
The structures of the temple are later, though the presence of two Ionic capitals in the Museum (see under Museum), as well as of a Corinthian capital of the 1st century AD and other architectural fragments lead archaeologists to suppose the existence of an earlier temple on the site.
The temple, which has a marble staircase, lies within a sacred area, about 70 metres long. It was surrounded by an enclosure wall (temenos). The back of the temple was built against the hill, the peribolos was surrounded on the remaining southern, western and northern sides, by a marble portico, which has been partially excavated. This portico has pilasters bearing fluted Doric semi-columns supporting capitals that are decorated below with a row of astragali and beads and which, on the decorated below with a row of astragali and beads and which, on the echinus, bear a series of ovolos.
The new temple was reconstructed in the 3rd century in Roman fashion, recycling the stone blocks from the older temple. The reconstruction had a smaller area and now only its marble floor remains.
Following studies carried out on site in 1998, a geologist of the Italian National Research Council recognized that the origin of both the Temple of Apollo and of the nearby Ploutonion was linked to the existence of the surface trace of a seismic fault, on which both sanctuaries were purposely built and which was revered as Gateway of Hades.
The Ploutonion was the oldest religious centre of the native community, the place where Apollo met with Cibele. It was said that only the priest of the Great Mother could enter the cave without being overpowered by the noxious underground fumes. Temples dedicated to Apollo were often built over geologically active sites, including his most famous, the temple at Delphi.
When the Christian faith was granted official primacy in the 4th century, this temple underwent a number of desecrations. Part of the peribolos was also dismantled to make room for a large Nympheum.
