IASOS
later IASSOS (Kiyi Kişlacik) Turkey.
City in Caria on the gulf of Mendelia opposite the
port of Güllük. In modern times it has been called Asin
Kalé and later Asia Kurin. It occupies a small peninsula
joined by an isthmus to the mainland, where the necropolis lies. Strabo (
14.658) calls it an island, and remarks
on its harbor and commercially important fishing. According to tradition it was a colony of Argos (Polyb.
16.12), but excavations indicate that it was inhabited,
probably by tribes from Caria, from the Early Bronze
Age on, and that in the Middle Bronze Age a Cretan
colony was established there as at nearby Miletos. During the first part of the Late Bronze Age it apparently
came under Achaean influence; to that period may probably be dated its contacts with Argos and the report of
Peloponnesian, probably Mycenaean, origin. After the
Mycenaean period the Carian element seems again to
have become dominant.
Discoveries attest that Iasos was a fairly important
center, tied to Rhodes and the Dodecanese. It was probably an ally of Ionia against Darius (
Hdt. 1.174-75) in
the battles in which Heraklides from nearby Mylasa distinguished himself (
Hdt. 5.121). In the 5th c. Iasos
appears on the tribute lists of the Delian League, first
as contributing one talent, then three or four. In 412
it was captured and sacked by the Peloponnesian fleet
(
Thuc. 8.26-28), then destroyed by Lysander (
Diod.
13.104.7). The city was rebuilt, probably with the help
of Knidos, as coins of 394 B.C. attest. After the peace
of Antalkidas it must have belonged to the satrapy of
Caria under Hekatomnos, father of Mausolos, and then
to the kingdom of Caria under Mausolos. It was liberated by Alexander the Great, in whose army two citizens from Iasos reached high rank (
CIG 2672). Iasos
was still independent after 168 B.C., but in 125 it was
incorporated into the province of Asia along with all of
Caria. Inscriptions and monuments indicate prosperity
under Hadrian and throughout the entire 2d c. Later it
was probably destroyed by the Heruli, but was rebuilt;
basilicas were built in the first centuries of the Christian
era, and one of its bishops took part in the Council of
Chalkedon in A.D. 451. The city was inhabited throughout
the Byzantine period, and in the Middle Ages it was the
seat of a fortress of the Cavalieri.
Iasos has two circuit walls. One of the Classical period, of bossed ashlar with towers and gates of various
types, surrounds the city on the peninsula and appears
to have been used again against the barbarian invasions.
The other, which is larger, in trapezoidal isodomic work
with a large gate on the land side, numerous postern
gates, and semicircular elongated towers, surrounds the
landward end of the peninsula where the modern town
lies. Excavations have revealed that the wall is actually
one continuous circuit, and that within it there were several buildings. Probably it was a defensive wall for a
garrison guarding the gulf of Iasos.
Few buildings were identified before excavation. The
4th c. B.C. theater, set on the slope of the hill toward the
NE, is preserved to the top of the embankment wall, with
an inscription which records its restoration. The marble
seats, however, were carried off in the last century for
use in Istanbul. The summa cavea was reached on the
level from the W, but on the E side there was a staircase.
The orchestra is well preserved and the stage shows successive Hellenistic remodelings. The Roman proscenium
was decorated with niches and engaged columns.
Beside and below the theater the hill is less steep.
The inhabited areas here preserved approximately the
same orientation from archaic times to the late Imperial
period. On the S side, towards the open sea, there is
an imposing terraced complex, beside a central covered
stairway. In the plain to the NW, near the main harbor,
which is presumed to have been in the cove between the
peninsula and mainland, is the agora; on the S side is
the bouleuterion, still preserved up to the top of the
cavea, and also a second public building with three
rooms on the E side. A large gate with a propylon, near
the SW corner, gave access to the agora from the shore,
and a second gate with three vaults on the E side communicated with the rest of the city. In the NE corner
was a nympheum. Beneath the agora of Imperial date
excavations have revealed the arrangements of the Classical and Hellenistic periods. On the W side, a necropolis of large cist tombs from the Protogeometric period
appears to indicate that the settlement was then perhaps
farther inland. In the Bronze Age, however, the inhabited
area spread below the agora and into the plain, to W and
E and over the hill.
Of the sanctuaries mentioned in inscriptions, that of
Zeus Megistos has been located in the plain to the NE
as the result of the discovery of an oros on the E gate
of the circuit wall. The sanctuary of Artemis Astiades,
with its exedras and the stoas restored under Commodus,
is behind the Bouleuterion to the W. The necropolis, on
the mainland contains Early Bronze Age tombs built
of rock slabs of the Carian type, chambered tombs with
both flat roofs and barrel vaults, and funeral monuments and sarcophagi of the Imperial period. The large
building known as the Fish Market has been shown to
be a mausoleum, with a small tetrastyle temple above
the burial chamber surrounded by a courtyard and a portico. The so-called Clock Tower is the only remaining
example of a group of Roman tombs with two stories
and a cupola supported on arches. The necropolis, on
the edge of which an agricultural-industrial complex was
established in the Roman period, is crossed by an aqueduct which probably continued as far as the peninsula.
There are several basilicas and other Christian buildings, particularly in the E section of the peninsula, and
two basilicas have been found at the summit of the hill,
near the fort of the Cavalieri.
Finds are in the Smyrna museum, but an antiquarium
is being built on the site, in the N portico of the Roman
mausoleum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Texier,
Description de l'Asie Mineure
III (1849)
PI; E. L. Hicks, “Jasos,”
JHS 8 (1887); 9
(1888); W. Judeich,
AthMitt 15 (1890); F. Krischen,
ArchAnz (1913); G. Guidi,
Annuario 4-5 (1921-22)
I;
G. Jost,
Iasos in Karien, ein antikes Stadtbild (1935);
G. E. Bean & J. M. Cook,
BSA 52 (1957); recent excavations: D. Levi,
Annuario 39-40 (1961-62); 43-44
(1965-66); 45-46 (1967-68); 47-48 (1969-70); C. Laviosa,
III Congr. Intennaz. Cretologico (1971).
C. LAVIOSA
