Visitors to Aspendos rarely venture beyond the well-preserved Roman theater, ignoring the remains of the city proper behind it.
Aspendos was an important trade center famous for wheat and horse breeding. The Persians had the exclusive rights to these horses but when Alexander arrived he claimed their yearly contribution, including four thousand horses.
The ancient city can be accessed over a path that starts to the right of the theater as facing it. It leads over a paved Roman road to what is left of a large Nymphaeum. At a right angle with this fountain are the remains of the Basilica, and in between them lies the Agora, now entirely overgrown. Only the 15 two-story shops and warehouses on the opposite side of the Agora are clearly visible (see: Aspendos, the unfaithful).
It is here that recent excavations have exposed large amounts of coins dating from Hellenistic and Roman times. From the 5th century BC onwards, Aspendos minted coins following Persian standards, and the obverse of the bronze coins used, very appropriately, the picture of a horse.
Valuable objects changed hands in these stores although some spaces served as offices for trading. One of these shops yielded a wide array of precious artifacts such as small oil and perfume bottles, rings and precious gemstones, lamps, bronze belt buckles, bone hairpins, etc.
In some of the two-story shops, bits of wall paintings and hundreds of sand mussel shells were recovered, probably used as decoration.
In May 2024, statues of Zeus and Aphrodite approximately fifty centimeters tall were found in good condition. Zeus is sitting on a throne. Aphrodite is represented holding her cloak with one hand and an imperial armor standing at her feet. The material has not been specified but the statues appear to be made of marble. From a stylistic point of view, they could be dated back to the Roman Imperial Period.
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