Elaiussa Sebaste

Elaiussa Sebaste is an ancient Cilician city founded in the 2nd century BC on a small island near present-day Ayas, 55 km from Mersin on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Renamed Sebaste ('imperial city') under King Archelaus, it prospered as a major trading harbour from the Augustan period through the early Byzantine era. The ruins include a 2nd-century AD theatre, an agora with lion-shaped monumental fountains, baths with mosaic floors, a Corinthian-columned pagan temple, and a Byzantine church. Its necropolis on a northern hill preserves approximately 100 monumental tombs and sarcophagi, the richest in ancient Cilicia. Archaeological excavations have been conducted since 1995 by Sapienza University of Rome.