[SunkenCiv]

If this is an actual photo of the ruins, it's obvious that this city is classical Greek, not Mycenaean Greek.

This year excavations in Iasos have revealed a sewage system that was in place in the 4,000-year-old city and tunnels to the city’s theater. DHA photo

[Paladin2]

Nice Post. Thnx.

Good that the Islamists didn't get there first, pikers that they are.

[GeronL]

was that a theater, a religious venue? or a local government council place?

all of these?

[morphing libertarian]

Thanx

[WhiskeyX]

That is not Classical Greek architecture at all.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

I searched on Iasos and I believe I found the same photo from a different angle.

What this tells me is a composite structure built and rebuilt by many civilizations. The earliest I see is the Mycenaean Lintel - and behind that, a Roman Barrel vault. (Greeks had many things, but they did not have the arch, the dome or barrel vault.)

[Verginius Rufus]

According to the Blue Guide: Turkey. The Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts (1989), Iasos has excellent harbors, rich fishing grounds, and marble quarries producing a fine red-tinted marble. They have found Minoan (2000-1550 B.C.) and Mycenaean pottery there. Supposedly it was colonized by Argos. The first Greek settlers are thought to have arrived in the 9th century. In the 5th century it was an Athenian ally.

Thucydides reports (8.28) its capture by Spartan and allied forces in 412 B.C.--they handed the city over to the Persian satrap Tissaphernes.

According to Diodorus Siculus, in 405 Lysander took Iasos by storm (it was again an Athenian ally), and killed all the adult males, 800 in all, then enslaved the women and children and leveled the city.

In the fourth century it was subject to Mausolus and later favored by Alexander the Great. It came under the control of Rhodes about 190 B.C. During Mithridates the Great's war against Rome, beginning in 88 B.C., Iasos sided with Mithridates. It prospered during the Roman imperial period.

There has been an Italian archaeological team working there since 1960. It is in SW Turkey, in what was ancient Caria, south of Miletus.