Extensive Marble Floor of Ancient Agora Uncovered in Turkey

GERMENCIK, TURKEY—Türkiye Today reports that Turkish archaeologists led by Gorkem Kokdemir of Ankara University at the site of Magnesia in western Turkey have uncovered an extensive 2,400-year-old area paved with well-preserved marble slabs that once formed part of the city’s agora. In ancient Greek settlements, the agora served as a city’s main religious, administrative, and social center. Before archaeologists began excavating Magnesia’s main square, it was covered by nearly 15 feet of silt layers deposited over the centuries by floods from the nearby Büyük Menderes River. The team has thus far uncovered about 12,000 square yards of the 25,000-square-foot agora. The space was once surrounded on all four sides by colonnades and enclosed rooms thought to have served as the state archives. Previous German-led excavations at the site unearthed 200 inscriptions in just two rooms, so the archaeologists are hopeful that the ongoing archaeological work will yield a wealth of new historical records. To read about extraordinary mosaic floors unearthed at a Greco-Roman city in southern Turkey, go to "Zeugma After the Flood."