Hello my friends. After the upper Agora, we came face to face with the real star of Sagalassos the Antonine Nymphaeum. And honestly it felt less like a fountain and more like the city just showing off how rich it was. I could easily imagine the kind of luxury that reigned here. You can still see the Roman grandeur in the colorful marble and columns. And people back then probably treated this place like a shrine. I remembered reading about ancient water cults once, how people used to worship water itself before that shifted to river gods and nymphs. And standing there at the nymphaeum, I could almost see that shift right there in the stone.

The fountain was built back when Marcus Aurelius was emperor, the Roman ruler the whole Antonine dynasty is named after. He's actually one of my favorites, more for his philosophy than for his empire. During his era Sagalassos experienced its best time. Thanks to its exports of ceramics and olives, the city was extraordinarily wealthy. Ah the olive tree, such a fertile creation that even grows atop a mountain. The fountain served a practical purpose, but it was also meant to impress visitors. it was Sagalassos showing off to Rome, Look how rich we are. It really was just Sagalassos flexing on Rome. Water reached the fontain from amazing mountain springs higher up the slopes through a hidden aquaduct system.

Water used to pour from the central niche into a massive marble pool four meters up. Then a huge earthquake wrecked it all, burying the fountain for thirteen hundred years. When Professor Marc Waelkens's Belgian team excavated the upper Agora, they found thousands of marble fragments, still lying right where they'd fallen. And instead of just doing a modern rebuild, they decided to piece it back together bit by bit.

Bringing it back to life took nearly thirty years. For years the team carefully sorted thousands of marble fragments before putting them back together. when I first heard about the earthquake, it made me kind of sad. But had it not occurred, this fountain might not have survived to the present day. Being buried for centuries is probably exactly why it survived so well.

Then in 2010, something pretty special happened. The nymphaeum was switched back on. Archaeologists managed to locate and restore the ancient Roman plumbing system. The same mountain water that once flowed here in Roman times runs over these stones again thirteen centuries later.

Standing right in front of us was a statue that, at first glance you'd swear was a beautiful young girl. But it's actually Dionysus the god of wine. That's because late antique sculptors liked giving him soft features.

I have visited many ancient cities. But I have never seen an agora so beautiful, complete and meticulously restored. Most agoras you see are just a few lonely column stumps and some crumbled foundations. Here you can still apreciate the Agora as a complete architectural space.

Yet Sagalassos is not comprised solely of graceful statues of gods and ornate facades. When I lowered my eyes a bit, I noticed unusual details. Right before us lay what was most likely a stone outlet of the ancient Roman plumbing system. I think it was the opening of an underground channel, maybe some kind of distribution well. The more I looked around, the more I noticed just how much the Roman engineers had thought through. Beneath these massive slabs of the square lies a highly complex network of drainage and piping. That stone bowl wasn't just for show. It actually had a job to do. Collecting and redirecting mountain runoff so the Agora wouldn't turn into a flood zone every time it rained hard..

Off to the left of the Dionysus statue, tucked away in the shadow of the fountain we spotted something. A mysterious stone tunnel caught our eye and it turns out this arch wasn't just for looks. Honestly this vault alone tells you how good these builders were. Its whole job was carrying the immense weight of the mountain slope above, keeping the soil from ever caving in on the fountain below. Peek into the passage and you'll spot steep stone steps disappearing into the darkness.

Climbing those stairs, we ended up on a terrace looking straight down over the Bouleuterion, the old city council building. Honestly it looks like a tiny theater. This is where Sagalassos's richest and most powerful people used to sit, two thousand years ago, hashing out decisions, settling arguments, basically running the city from up here.

An amazing view opens up from this spot. From here the council had a commanding view over the Agora below.

The Heroon Tower. We almost missed it. The Heroon, a monument shrine built in honor of an unnamed hero. In recognition of his bravery, he was gifted twenty dancing nymphs. It was restored in 2010 too, right around the same time as the nymphaeum, which felt fitting

This one was built back in the first century BCE under Emperor Augustus. It reached a height of about fifteen meters. Scholars still aren't sure who this monument was actually built for. No tomb was ever found inside. So at least we know it wasn't a burial place. It seems to have been raised in honor of some young warrior or maybe ruler, someone who did something genuinely heroic for Sagalassos. But exactly who that was is still anyone's guess.

The Heroon became famous thanks to the finely sculpted frizes encircling the building. Fourteen dancing nymphs are carved into them. Some of them holding hands, others gently gathering up the edges of their flowing dresses. When Professor Waelkens's team started digging here, thia Heroon was just a shapeless heap of rubble, tumbled down the slope by that same earthquake that wrecked everything else.

Fortunately the panels featuring the dancing maidens had fallen face down, covered by a thick, soft layer of soil. And because of that, the layer of soil protected the reliefs so well that many details survived remarkably intact. To keep these reliefs safe from the mountain weather rain, winter snow, all of it, the original panels were eventually relocated to the Burdur Archaeology Museum. I visited that museum later on as well and I would love to share that experience in one of my upcoming posts when I get the chance.

This is where I'll end the second part of my Sagalassos tour. In the next post I want to tell you about places, such as rockcut tombs, the ancient amphitheater that drew thousands of travelers up the mountain paths and much more.

I'll share the rest of the journey with you in my next post.