Sagalassos
Pisidian And Roman Mountain City At 1,450 1,700 Metres On The Slopes Of Akdag; On The UNESCO Tentative List, Excavated By A Belgian Team Since 1990 · Aglasun, Burdur
Sagalassos sits between fourteen and seventeen hundred metres up the side of a mountain in Pisidia, in a natural amphitheatre of rock that makes the setting as memorable as the ruins. A Belgian team has been excavating here since 1990 and has done something unusual with what they found: rather than leaving fragments in rows, they re-erected the Antonine Nymphaeum, a monumental Roman fountain of the second century, and then turned the water back on. It runs. You stand at 1,500 metres in front of a working Roman fountain with a mountain behind it, and it is the single most surprising thing at any Turkish site. The rest is on the same scale - two agoras, a heroon carved with dancing girls, enormous Roman baths where colossal statues of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius were found, and a theatre high above everything, unexcavated and half-collapsed by earthquake, which almost nobody climbs to. Snow shuts the road for half the year.
Aglasun Ilcesi, Sagalassos Oren Yeri, Burdur, Aglasun, Burdur, Turkiye
Open daily in the snow-free season with longer summer hours; the mountain road up from Aglasun can be closed by snow from late autumn into spring and the site is effectively shut then. Excavation seasons in summer close sections without notice. The fountain is run during opening hours in the warmer months. Check locally before driving up.