Photos of the Ancient Greek Sanctuary of Apollo Smintheion

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Photos of the picturesque Ancient Greek Sanctuary of Apollo Smintheion Archaeological Site, Turkey. Photos by Photographer Paul E Williams. (TIP – use the icons below the slideshow for thumbnail photos and info)

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Photos of the Ancient Greek Sanctuary of Apollo Smintheion Archaeological Site

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Photos of the enigmatic Sanctuary of Apollo Smintheion & the ruins of Alexandria Troas, Turkey.

Temple of Apollo Smintheion

The Temple of Apollo Smintheion is rather strangely dedicated to Apollo the Mice Slayer. The ancient peoples who came to settle the area from Crete were told by an Oricle to settle where they were overrun by the “sons of the earth”.

When they were besieged by mice or rodents they interpreted the typically vague pronouncement of the Oracle “sons of the earth” to mean rodents. So they built the ancient of town of Khryse and nearly and the ancient Ionic Temple of Apollo Smintheion.

Little remains on the site today which is being excavated with funds by the Efes Brewery. The archaeological remains in the area are potentially extensive with adjacent town of Khryse and a Sacred Way that links the Temple to Alexandria Troas.

Alexandria Troas

Alexandria Troas was an ancient Greek city port of the northern Aegean with a population of 100,000 in its heyday. Paul of Tarsus sailed for Europe for the first time from Alexandria Troas and made his return there.

Miracle of St Paul At Alexander Troas

In the New Testament, book of Acts 20:9-12, it is related that Paul preached a long sermon to the people of Alexandria Troas during which a young man named Eutychus dropped to sleep falling from his seat out of a three storey window.

Paul picked Eutychus up reassuring the crowd that he was not dead and carried him upstairs. Eutychus was uninjured by his fall and the crowd took this to be a miracle performed by Paul but the name Eutychus does means “fortunate”.

Today the 400 hectar ( 1,000 acre) site is overgrown and apart from a couple of arches of its Roman Gymnasium there is little to see. German Arcaeologists are surveying and excavating the site and a 100BC stadium has been discovered recently.

Alexandria Troas and Khryse are just two of hundreds of sites in Turkey yet to be excavated and shows the potential wealth yet to be discovered in Anatolia.