Until a decade or so ago know one had heard of it. It was not a lost city, only forgotten. Lying at the foot of a steep mountainside between Izmir and Ephesus, it was almost entirely buried under soil, yet enough remains were visible for European travellers to note its existence in passing. A field survey by archaeologists in the mid-19th century identified the city, but no one pursued the faint trail. Two visits at long intervals, and then a deep silence prevailed until the early 1970s, when it was rediscovered by Professor Recep Meriç, an archaeologist at Dokuz Eylül University.

EXCAVATIONS BEGIN
Professor Meriç’s interest was initially aroused not so much by the faded dusty ruins themselves on their hilltop site overlooking Küçük Menderes Plain, but by the finds displayed in the nearby village. A statue of a lion, grave steles, figurines, inscriptions, pottery fragments and other objects showed that a magnificent city lay hidden beneath the soil.