Old Smyrna

Old Smyrna is the archaeological remnant of a Greek urban settlement near the modern Izmir district of Bayraklı, roughly four kilometres from the city centre. Inhabited from around 1000 to 300 BC, it stands among the earliest documented planned settlements on the Aegean coast and was the direct predecessor of modern İzmir. One of its most striking qualities is a geological shift: in antiquity the site sat directly on the shoreline, but centuries of alluvial deposit have pushed the coastline several hundred metres away, leaving the ruins stranded inland. Around 330 BC the population relocated to a new city at the foot of Mount Pagos — an event traditionally linked to Alexander the Great. Excavations have uncovered layers of Archaic and early Classical city fabric, including sections of a city wall and temple foundations.