Magnesia on the Maeander

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Magnesia on the Maeander is an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, located on the Maeander river upstream from Ephesus, near the town of Germencik. The ancient city was founded by colonists from the inhabitants of Magnesia Thessalia-- also known as the Magnetes in Greece, who provided its name.

Magnesia was at an important location commercially and strategically in the triangle of Priene, Ephesus and Tralles.

It lay within Ionia, but because it had been settled by Aeolians from Magnesia of Greece, was not accepted into the Ionian League. During its existence, Magnesia was subject first to the Lydians, then to the Persians. In later years, Magnesia on the Maeander, with its similarly named neighbor Magnesia on the Sipylum, supported the Romans in the Second Mithridatic War.

Gyges, king of Lydia captured it and afterward it suffered from the Cimmerian raids, and was often under the control of the Persians. Themistocles retired to Magnesia. There was a Temple of Artemis but little remains at the site today.

Magnesia was also the source for the mysterious stones that could attract or repel each other, and thus its name came to be used for the phenomenon known as magnetism.

[edit] Notable people

• Bathycles (6th century BC) Greek sculptor

[edit] Excavations

The first excavations at the archaeological site were conducted in 1891 by Carl Humann, discoverer of the Pergamon Altar. These lasted 21 months and partially revealed the theatre, the Artemis Temple, the agora, the Zeus temple and the prytaneion. Excavations were resumed at the site, after an interval of almost 100 years, in 1984, by Prof. Dr. Orhan Bingöl of the University of Ankara and the Turkish Ministry of Culture.

Findings from the site are now displayed in İstanbul and Aydın, as well as in Berlin and Paris where they were smuggled during the Ottoman rule. The biggest piece removed by the German archaeological team in this manner was the whole façade of the Zeus temple, which is currently in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Turkey has made several attempts to retrieve it.