“Rye Castle” village Population: 2,100
Çavdarhisar is a sleepy little village 57km southwest of Kütahya that would go completely undisturbed by visitors were it not for the impressive ruins of the Roman city of Aizanoi that lie scattered about it. If you’re in Kütahya with time on your hands you could easily while away a happy half day admiring the ruins and the rural tranquillity.
Backstory
Excavations at the site suggest that this is where the original prehistoric settlement took place during the early Bronze Age. Then in the second century, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-38), the Romans decided to erect the vast temple, paying for it with a levy on users of the surrounding land.
Aizanoi appears to have been a planned town, rather than one that grew up naturally over time. Although the Temple of Zeus is its most striking structure because so much of it survives intact, there are plenty of other remains scattered throughout the village.
Around the site
Once you reach the village of Çavdarhisar stay on the bus until you see the staggering remains of the Temple of Zeus, a cluster of picturesque columns with Ionic capitals bestriding a bluff at the far end of the village. A huge relief depicting a female head has tumbled to the ground and sits picturesquely at one end of the site. Its presence has persuaded some authorities that the temple must have been at least partly dedicated to Cybele, the Mother Goddess.
Close to the temple are the ruins of a stadium rather like the one at Aphrodisias. It appears to have been built in stages over the course of the second century. These days the rows of seats that would once have encircled the stadium are mostly overgrown. At the far end, however, you can scramble over the fallen stones to reach the remains of a theatre built right beside it.
Here the tiered seats have survived in much better shape although what would have been the stage is little more than a jumble of fallen masonry. It’s a wild and romantic setting which you are likely to share only with the wheatears.
The temple, stadium and theatre are the most obvious relics of ancient Aizanoi, but if you walk back towards the centre of the village you will see signs to several other impressive reminders of the past. You will, for example, be able to inspect the remains of two bridges over the Koca Çay (the ancient river Penkalas) which date back to the second century. One of them even bears images of Apuleius Eurykles, a local dignitary.
In its heyday Aizanoi boasted several public bath complexes. The scant remains of one complex can be seen to the left of the path leading to the stadium, but back in the village there are more substantial remains of a second bath-house which include a fine mosaic floor depicting a satyr and a maenad, kept under lock and key. The site custodian will probably be happy to show you round and maybe even pour water over the mosaic to bring out its vibrant colours. So much of this particular bath-house has probably survived because in the fifth century the building was converted into the seat of a local bishopric.
Aizanoi city centre appears to have included a sizeable agora (marketplace) as well as an open square that was surrounded by porticos where locals could stroll in the shade. There may also have been another small temple in this area, although today only the reconstructed remains of a portico and some marble paving stones survive to hint at what must have been.
More interesting is an unusual circular building nearby which also dates back to the second century and seems to have housed a food market. Sometimes the ancient past can seem unimaginably remote to us, but here, as in the Terraced Houses at Ephesus, the minutiae of daily life have been preserved so well that we almost feel as if we can reach out and touch it. Roman numerals on the walls represent a list of prices for everything that was on sale as decreed by the Emperor Diocletian in 301. The Romans were apparently just as worried about inflation and racketeering as we are today, and it comforted them to be told, for example, that the price of a strong slave was fixed at two donkeys or a straight 30,000 dinars.
By now most visitors will be flagging. Those with energy left may want to explore the ancient cemeteries that dot the outskirts of the village. The grandeur of some of the tombs that once stood here can be assessed on a visit to the Archaeological Museum in Kütahya (closed Mondays) where a sarcophagus adorned with images of single-breasted Amazon warriors fighting with their Greek foes forms the centrepiece.
Sleeping
There are no hotels in Çavdarhisar. You will need to stay in Kütahya or Uşak.
Transport info
There are regular buses from Istanbul to Kütahya, and hourly buses from Kütahya otogar to Çavdarhisar village. Alternatively you could take a fast train from Istanbul to Eskişehir, and then proceed by bus to Kütahya/Çavdarhisar.
