Amorium, a Byzantine City in Anatolia

In 1836 William Hamilton identified the site of Amorium and provided the first description of the ancient ruins. We reached the deserted and dreary site of what was once a populous city...Near the centre of the valley in which the ruins are situated... is an insulated hill about half a mile in circumference, on which may still be traced a portion of the walls of an Acropolis... The principal part of the town is to the S. and S.W. of the Acropolis... These ruins...appear chiefly to date from the early Byzantine or Christian period..., marking the existence of one of those large and important towns which were destroyed in this part of Asia Minor by the irruptions of the Saracens and the Seljukian monarchs of Iconium.Much of what Hamilton described has now disappeared, but since 1988 the Amorium Excavations Project has been able to reveal other ruins that testify to the accuracy of his assessment of Amorium as an important Roman and Byzantine city. This guidebook aims to give an interim account of the on-going excavations and set the site in its proper historical context.

In 1836 William Hamilton identified the site of Amorium and provided the first description of the ancient ruins. We reached the deserted and dreary site of what was once a populous city...Near the centre of the valley in which the ruins are situated... is an insulated hill about half a mile in circumference, on which may still be traced a portion of the walls of an Acropolis... The principal part of the town is to the S. and S.W. of the Acropolis... These ruins...appear chiefly to date from the early Byzantine or Christian period..., marking the existence of one of those large and important towns which were destroyed in this part of Asia Minor by the irruptions of the Saracens and the Seljukian monarchs of Iconium.Much of what Hamilton described has now disappeared, but since 1988 the Amorium Excavations Project has been able to reveal other ruins that testify to the accuracy of his assessment of Amorium as an important Roman and Byzantine city. This guidebook aims to give an interim account of the on-going excavations and set the site in its proper historical context.