Laodicea, an update on the works in progress

As announced last year (see: Laodicea, great works in progress!), excavations of the area around the city's sacred agora and the adjacent temple have exposed a row of colossal columns from under seven meters of rubble. The back wall covered with paintings is now painstakingly and meticulously reassembled and reinforced. That sounds very promising indeed for it is a rare example of frescoes covering such a large surface. Plans to restore the Hellenistic theater from the 2^nd century BC and seating as many as 15,000 seem to be materializing as well.

[Picture from Tornos News]

Further excavations have established that Laodicea existed already before Antiochus II (see also: When pillars with unknown writing were discovered in India) who dedicated the city to his wife Laodike. Archaeologists have found proof that the settlement was established already in 5500 BC and that the first settlers were people from Anatolia. The location was ideal for trade as there was access to the sea through the Meander River to ship their local productions of cereals and textiles, as well as the locally quarried marble.

But there is still a huge amount of work to be done to expose the remains of Laodicea which cover some five square kilometers. The list of monuments waiting to be unearthed and restored appears to be endless: a large Stadium measuring 285 x 70 meters, two theaters (Western and Northern), four Roman Baths, no less than five Agoras, five Nymphaeums, two monumental city gates (Ephesus and Syria), a Bouleuterion, several temples, churches, public latrines, houses with a Peristyle design, and several colonnaded streets (Syria, Ephesus, Stadium Streets). Importantly, let’s not forget the two large water distribution terminals where the city’s water laws were found (see: Water laws, still unchanged after nearly two thousand years). Outside Laodicea all the necropolises used over the centuries are awaiting investigation.