About Aigai
On Yunt Mountain, Aigai is a hilltop city of Aeolis with walls rising over steep rocks, a terraced agora and monumental council buildings. Its inland location reflects an Aegean economy shaped by livestock farming and regional routes rather than coastal trade alone.
History
Aigai emerged as an Aeolian city in the first millennium BCE. It developed close ties with the kingdom of Pergamon in the Hellenistic period, when its three-storey agora, council house and substantial fortifications took shape. A major earthquake damaged the city, which was rebuilt with Roman support. It remained a centre of trade and rural production under Rome. A smaller settlement and fortified occupation followed in Byzantine times. Excavations investigate both the city's architecture and its surrounding productive landscape.
Highlights and principal structures
- Three-storey agora building
- Bouleuterion
- City walls and gates
- Sanctuary of Demeter
- Theatre
- Necropolis
Historical period
Archaic–Hellenistic–Roman