Excavations reveal road to ancient Side’s second main gate

ANTALYA

Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Side in the southern province of Antalya have uncovered a major urban artery leading to the site’s second principal gate, along with adjacent side streets, shedding new light on the settlement’s long-term development.

The discovery was made within the bounds of Side Ancient City, one of the most prominent coastal cities of ancient Pamphylia, where systematic excavations have been ongoing uninterrupted since 1947.

Side, known in antiquity as a major harbor city, is distinguished today by its well-preserved theater, the temples of Athena and Apollo, Roman-era bath complexes, monumental fountains, colonnaded streets, and museum spaces that collectively attract large numbers of visitors each year.

The latest excavations, accelerated under Türkiye’s “Heritage for the Future” initiative implemented by the Culture and Tourism Ministry, have focused on revealing the urban connectivity between the city’s eastern sector and its main gate systems. The newly exposed road leads directly toward what is identified as the second primary entrance of the ancient city, the East Gate, alongside previously undocumented adjacent streets branching into residential and commercial zones.

Excavation director Feriştah Alanyalı, an academic at Anadolu University, emphasized the significance of the findings for understanding Side’s chronological urban development.

“We opened the street leading to the East Gate. We obtained important information regarding the city’s history and its historical phases,” Alanyalı said. “We were able to identify, through its phases, the use of a road constructed in the Early Imperial period. In addition, the street branching to the south of this road had never been excavated before. While opening the street, we had the opportunity to identify and interpret the historical processes of the area.”

According to Alanyalı, the excavation not only revealed physical infrastructure but also allowed researchers to reassess how different sections of the city evolved over time, particularly during the Roman Imperial era, when Side experienced significant architectural expansion and integration into broader Mediterranean trade networks.

The excavation team also plans to extend its work this year to both the landward and seaward fortification systems of the city. Once completed, restoration and stabilization efforts on the coastal defensive walls are expected to establish a controlled and more legible boundary for the archaeological zone, improving both preservation and site management.

Beyond urban architecture, recent findings have reinforced Side’s role as a critical node in ancient maritime commerce. Alanyalı noted that a bronze-age ship anchor discovered near the Alara Stream in previous fieldwork provides evidence of intensive seafaring activity in the region as early as the second millennium B.C.E.

“These findings clearly show that maritime trade in the region was already highly active around 2000 B.C.E,” she said, underscoring the long historical continuity of coastal exchange systems along the southern Anatolian shoreline.

The excavation director further described Side as a cosmopolitan settlement shaped by migration, trade, and cultural interaction, with archaeological evidence indicating the presence of communities connected to regions as distant as the Aegean and the Black Sea.

“Side is an important maritime city, but at the same time, it is also an agricultural city due to the alluvial soils brought by the Melas River,” Alanyalı explained. “Sediment carried by water gradually fills the harbor. Although the harbor was continuously dredged, the people of Side eventually had to relocate it.”

She added that ongoing research has revealed the existence of multiple smaller harbors in the surrounding region, suggesting a more complex and adaptive maritime infrastructure than previously assumed. “We have identified that there were other small and large ports in the region,” she said, indicating that Side’s maritime system likely functioned as a network rather than a single centralized harbor.