For the picture it presents, in its extremely well-preserved houses, streets and quarters, virtually conveys the way of life unique to that world down to the smallest detail.

A 2400-YEAR-OLD PHOTOGRAPH
Thrilled by the view that met his eye, Wiegand, a scholar who carried out excavations at Priene at the end of the 19th century, dubbed it ‘the Pompeii of Asia Minor’. The construction of the houses in the city’s western districts especially and the rich findings recovered from their interiors are like a photograph reflecting life 2400 years ago. Many valuable monuments, such as banquet and dining rooms with ostentatious decor, walls covered with painted reliefs or drawings, various household furnishings, small statues and fragments of a bronze bedstead take their place among the slices of everyday life brought to the light of day. Like Pompeii preserved under the ashes of Vesuvius, here too life was suddenly brought to a standstill by natural disaster and, with the exception of a handful of houses, remained in that state for thousands of years.