Neolithic The earliest available archaeological evidence indicates that the islands on which Miletus was originally placed were inhabited by a
Neolithic population in 3500–3000 BC. Pollen in core samples from Lake Bafa in the
Latmus region inland of Miletus suggests that a lightly grazed climax forest prevailed in the
Maeander valley, otherwise untenanted. Sparse Neolithic settlements were made at
springs, numerous and sometimes
geothermal in this karst, rift valley topography. The islands offshore were settled perhaps for their strategic significance at the mouth of the Maeander, a route inland protected by
escarpments. The
graziers in the valley may have belonged to them, but the location looked to the sea.
Middle Bronze Age The prehistoric archaeology of the Early and Middle Bronze Age portrays a city heavily influenced by society and events elsewhere in the Aegean, rather than inland.
Minoan period The earliest Minoan settlement of Miletus dates to 2000 BC. Beginning at about 1900 BC artifacts of the
Minoan civilization acquired by trade arrived at the site.Ephorus says: Miletus was first founded and fortified above the sea by Cretans, where the Miletus of olden times is now situated, being settled by Sarpedon, who brought colonists from the Cretan Miletus and named the city after that Miletus, the place formerly being in possession of the
Leleges.According to
Pausanias, however, Miletus was a friend of Sarpedon from
Crete, after whom the city was named. Miletus had a son named Kelados, and the
heroon of Kelados has been found at Panormos, a port of Miletus near
Didyma. The legends recounted as history by the ancient historians and geographers are perhaps the strongest; the late mythographers have nothing historically significant to relate.
Late Bronze Age Recorded history at Miletus begins with the records of the
Hittite Empire and the Mycenaean records of
Pylos and
Knossos, in the Late Bronze Age.
Mycenaean period Miletus was a
Mycenaean stronghold on the coast of Asia Minor from to 1100 BC. In , the city supported an anti-Hittite rebellion of
Uhha-Ziti of nearby
Arzawa.
Muršili ordered his generals
Mala-Ziti and
Gulla to raid Millawanda, and they proceeded to burn parts of it; damage from
LHIIIA found on-site has been associated with this raid. In addition the town was fortified according to a Hittite plan. Miletus is then mentioned in the "
Tawagalawa letter", part of a series including the
Manapa-Tarhunta letter and the
Milawata letter, all of which are less securely dated. The Tawagalawa letter notes that Milawata had a governor,
Atpa, who was under the jurisdiction of
Ahhiyawa (a growing state probably in
LHIIIB Mycenaean Greece); and that the town of
Atriya was under Milesian jurisdiction. The Manapa-Tarhunta letter also mentions Atpa. Together the two letters tell that the adventurer
Piyama-Radu had humiliated Manapa-Tarhunta before Atpa (in addition to other misadventures); a Hittite king then chased Piyama-Radu into Millawanda and, in the Tawagalawa letter, requested Piyama-Radu's extradition to
Hatti. The Milawata letter mentions a joint expedition by the Hittite king and a
Luwian vassal (probably
Kupanta-Kurunta of Mira) against Miletus, and notes that the city (together with Atriya) was now under Hittite control.
Homer mentions that during the time of the
Trojan War, Miletus was an ally of Troy and was city of the
Carians, under Nastes and
Amphimachus. In the last stage of LHIIIB, the citadel of Bronze Age
Pylos counted among its female slaves a
mi-ra-ti-ja,
Mycenaean Greek for "women from Miletus", written in
Linear B syllabic script.
Fall of Miletus During the collapse of Bronze Age civilization, Miletus was burnt again, presumably by the
Sea Peoples.
Dark Age Mythographers told that Neleus, a son of
Codrus the last
King of Athens, had come to Miletus after the "
Return of the Heraclids" (so, during the
Greek Dark Ages). A
heroon for Neleus was allegedly located outside of the city wall of Roman Miletus, which probably marks the former city center contemporary to Neleus. Both cities acted under the leadership and sanction of an
Apollo oracle. Megara cooperated with that of
Delphi. Miletus had her own oracle of Apollo
Didymeus Milesios in
Didyma. Also, there are many parallels in the political organization of both cities. This 'Car of Megara' may or may not be the same as the 'Car of the Carians,' also known as
Car (King of Caria). In the late 7th century BC, the tyrant
Thrasybulus preserved the independence of Miletus during a 12-year war fought against the
Lydian Empire. Thrasybulus was an ally of the famous
Corinthian tyrant
Periander. Miletus was an important centre of philosophy and science, producing such men as
Thales,
Anaximander, and
Anaximenes. Referring to this period,
religious studies professor
F. E. Peters described
pan-deism as "the legacy of the Milesians". As well as being a philosopher,
Thales was also suggested to have initiated the famous grid plan of the city. By the 6th century BC, Miletus had earned a maritime empire with many colonies, mainly scattered around the
Black Sea. Miletus and its numerous colonies were culturally tied by, for example, the cult of
Aphrodite, a deity associated with seafaring in the cultural context of Miletus. However, its maritime hegemony declined as a result of the Persian occupation in the early fourth century BC, and the vacuum of power was later filled by
Athens.
First Achaemenid period When
Cyrus of Persia defeated
Croesus of Lydia in the middle of the 6th century BC, Miletus fell under
Persian rule. In 499 BC, Miletus's
tyrant Aristagoras became the leader of the
Ionian Revolt against the Persians, who, under
Darius the Great, quashed this rebellion in the
Battle of Lade in 494 BC and punished Miletus by selling all of the women and children into slavery, killing the men, and expelling all of the young men as eunuchs, thereby assuring that no Miletus citizen would ever be born again. A year afterward,
Phrynicus produced the tragedy
The Capture of Miletus in Athens. The Athenians fined him for reminding them of their loss.
Classical Greek period In 479 BC, the Greeks decisively defeated the Persians on the Greek mainland at the
Battle of Plataea, and Miletus was freed from Persian rule. Although many sanctuaries of Miletus had been destroyed by the Persians, the restoration of them was prohibited by the "Oath of the Ionians", which aimed to retain the ruins as memorials. However, this oath was only partially observed by the Milesians, with some sanctuaries being restored back to their Archaic appearances. The city's gridlike layout was also constructed across all the area within the city wall, designed by
Hippodamus of Miletus. It later became famous and was known as the "Hippodamian plan", serving as the basic layout for the new foundations of Hellenistic and
Roman cities. When Alexander died in 323 BC, Miletus came under the control of Ptolemy, governor of
Caria, and his satrap of Lydia,
Asander, who had become autonomous. In 312 BC, Macedonian general
Antigonus I Monophthalmus sent Docimus and Medeius to free the city and grant autonomy, restoring the democratic patrimonial regime. In 301 BC, after Antigonus I was killed in the
Battle of Ipsus by the coalition of
Lysimachus,
Cassander, and
Seleucus I Nicator, founder of the
Seleucid Empire, Miletus maintained good relations with all the successors after Seleucus I Nicator made substantial donations to the sanctuary of Didyma and returned the statue of Apollo that had been stolen by the Persians in 494 BC. In 295 BC, Antigonus I's son
Demetrius Poliorcetes was the eponymous archon (stephanephorus) in the city, which allied with
Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt, while Lysimachus assumed power in the region, enforcing a strict policy towards the Greek cities by imposing high taxes, forcing Miletus to resort to lending.
Seleucid period Around 287/286 BC Demetrius Poliorcetes returned, but failed to maintain his possessions and was imprisoned in Syria. Nicocles of Sidon, the commander of Demetrius' fleet surrendered the city. Lysimachus dominated until 281 BC, when he was defeated by the Seleucids at the
Battle of Corupedium. In 280/279 BC the Milesians adopted a new chronological system based on the Seleucids.
Egyptian period In 279 BC, the city was taken from Seleucid king
Antiochus II by Egyptian king
Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who donated a large area of land to cement their friendship, and it remained under Egyptian sway until the end of the century.
Aristides of Miletus, founder of the bawdy
Miletian school of literature, flourished in the 2nd century BC.
Roman period After an alliance with Rome, in 133 BC the city became part of the province of Asia. Miletus benefited from Roman rule and most of the present monuments date to this period. The
New Testament mentions Miletus as the site where the Apostle
Paul in 57 AD met the elders of the
church of
Ephesus near the close of his Third Missionary Journey, as recorded in
Acts of the Apostles (Acts 20:15–38). It is believed that Paul stopped by the Great Harbour Monument and sat on its steps. He might have met the Ephesian elders there and then bade them farewell on the nearby beach. Miletus is also the city where Paul left
Trophimus, one of his travelling companions, to recover from an illness (
2 Timothy 4:20). Because this cannot be the same visit as Acts 20 (in which Trophimus accompanied Paul all the way to Jerusalem, according to Acts 21:29), Paul must have made at least one additional visit to Miletus, perhaps as late as 65 or 66 AD. Paul's previous successful three-year ministry in nearby
Ephesus resulted in the evangelization of the entire province of Asia (see Acts 19:10, 20;
1 Corinthians 16:9). It is safe to assume that at least by the time of the apostle's second visit to Miletus, a fledgling Christian community was established in Miletus. In 262 new city walls were built. However the harbour was silting up and the economy was in decline. In 538 emperor
Justinian rebuilt the walls but it had become a small town.
Byzantine period During the
Byzantine age the
see of Miletus was raised to an
archbishopric and later a
metropolitan bishopric. The small Byzantine castle called Palation located on the hill beside the city, was built at this time. Miletus was headed by a
curator. In 1369, the archbishopric of Miletus, along with the one of
Antioch on the Meander, were assumed by
Stauropolis due to their decline, as a result of the threat posed by the
Anatolian Beyliks.
Turkish rule from the Turkish period at the Miletus site
Seljuk Turks conquered the city in the 14th century and used Miletus as a port to trade with
Venice. In the 15th century, the
Ottomans utilized the city as a harbour during their rule in
Anatolia. As the harbour became silted up, the city was abandoned. Due to ancient and subsequent
deforestation,
overgrazing (mostly by goat herds),
erosion and
soil degradation, the ruins of the city lie some from the sea with
sediments filling the plain and bare hill ridges without soils and trees, a
maquis shrubland remaining. The
Ilyas Bey Complex from 1403 with its mosque is a
Europa Nostra awarded cultural heritage site in Miletus.
Archaeological excavations at the
Pergamon Museum in Berlin The first excavations in Miletus were conducted by the French archaeologist
Olivier Rayet in 1873, followed by the German archaeologists
Julius Hülsen and
Theodor Wiegand between 1899 and 1931. Excavations, however, were interrupted several times by wars and various other events. Carl Weickart excavated for a short season in 1938 and again between 1955 and 1957. He was followed by Gerhard Kleiner and then by Wolfgang Muller-Wiener. Today, excavations are organized by the
Ruhr University of
Bochum,
Germany. One remarkable artifact recovered from the city during the first excavations of the 19th century, the
Market Gate of Miletus, was transported piece by piece to Germany and reassembled. It is currently exhibited at the
Pergamon Museum in
Berlin. The main collection of artifacts resides in the
Miletus Museum in
Didim,
Aydın, serving since 1973. Archaeologists discovered a cave under the city's theatre and believe that it is a "sacred" cave which belonged to the cult of
Asklepius.
Examples of the Milesian Vase File:Fragment_of_a_terracotta_oinochoe_(jug)_MET_DP114676.jpg|The name Fikellura derives from a site on the island of Rhodes to which this fabric has been attributed. It is now established that the center of production was Miletus. File:Fragment_of_a_terracotta_oinochoe_(jug)_MET_DP121651.jpg| File:Terracotta_amphoriskos_(oil_flask)_MET_DP114678.jpg|Milesian Vase File:Greek_-_Fikellura_Amphora_-_Walters_482114.jpg|Milesian Vase File:Terracotta_amphoriskos_(oil_flask)_MET_DP114695.jpg|Milesian Vase File:Terracotta_oinochoe_(jug)_MET_DP1864.jpg|Milesian Vase == Geography ==