The Ephesos Harbor Project

The Ephesos Harbor Project is carried out with the support of the Crisler Library in Ephesos, under the direction of Prof. Christine M. Thomas, and of the excavations in Ephesos of the Österreichisches Archäologisches Institut, under the direction of Prof. Dr. Friedrich Krinzinger.

Overview

In Ephesos, it is the harbor area that has yielded the monuments and small finds that correspond most closely to the world of the first century described in early Christian sources, such as Luke's description of Paul's visit to Ephesos in the Acts of the Apostles. The theater, inscriptions attesting the guild of silversmiths, and inscriptions mentioning men named “Tyrannos” were all uncovered in the immediate vicinity of the harbor. Moreover, everything we know about the social location of Jewish communities and the followers of Jesus in the first century points away from the monumental city center of  Ephesos, the focus for more than a century of the excavations carried out by the Austrian archaeological institute. Jews in the ancient world were not landowners, but generally merchants, artisans, freedmen, or slaves, that is, more mobile populations.  It is highly likely that they would have lived in the newer parts of the city, where urban growth was taking place during the Roman period, such as the harbor area that had begun to silt in and create large new expanses of buildable land in the late Hellenistic period.  Proximity to the harbor was also an advantage for the pursuit of every sort of trade or mercantile activity.  

Since 2004, the Crisler Library in Ephesos has generously provided significant funding for a collaborative project with the Austrian Archaeological Institute to explore the harbor of Ephesos.  This project builds upon geomorphological work conducted by the Institute throughout the 1990s, in which evidence from deep drilling of soil samples from the land and marine sediment of the ancient harbor was used to redraw completely the map of the harbor of Ephesos.  The present project began with a GPS survey based on this work (2004), and has continued the geomorphological work (2005-2006), because, for excavation, it is necessary to have an exact idea of where the first-century harbor was located at any given point; an error of a meter might result in an excavation in an area that was underwater during the first and second centuries.

The geomorphological survey has been supplemented with electromagnetic and georadar surveys (2005-2006). These identify structures underground and the materials of which they were composed.  Work in the harbor area has located several areas of Roman construction that are neither domestic nor monumental.  Some of them have numerous columns still standing, and they are dotted with furnaces, kilns, and ovens, such as one would find in a manufacturing and mercantile district, with factories, storage areas, and shops.  The analysis is still continuing. All  of the methods of survey (geomorphological, electromagnetic, and georadar) are difficult to interpret and require comprehensive analysis and collation using computer modeling by highly-trained analysts.  The goal is a comprehensive excavation proposal with a plan for reconstruction, as required by the laws of the country. 

Excavation in this part of the city could uncover an area of workshops and businesses similar to what one finds at Ostia, the port of Rome.  These would give a lively idea of what working life was like for a large portion of the Roman population, including the Jewish community of Ephesos, Paul, and his first followers.  We have a very good idea, from the monumental structures and the opulently decorated terrace houses, of how the rich lived in Roman Ephesos.  But what was life like for the rest?  We might soon know much more.  The potential of this type of project for illuminating the world of early Christianity is immense. One might even find that rarest of things, archaeological traces of Christianity during its earliest years, such as the second and third-century Christian and Jewish graffiti found in other areas of economic activity in Asia Minor.