Claros Oracle Sanctuary – Menderes, İzmir
Claros (Clarus) is an ancient sanctuary and oracle of Apollo in western Anatolia, located in the Ahmetbeyli valley of the Menderes district (İzmir Province). The sacred area lies on the flat floor of the valley that connects the Menderes plain to the Gulf of Kuşadası, about 13 km south of Colophon (Değirmendere) and around 2 km north of the coastal town of Notion. Claros was never an independent polis; it functioned throughout antiquity as the sacred oracle center of Colophon, one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League.
(Source: İzmir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism – Claros (Menderes)
Visitİzmir – Claros Archaeological Site
Wikipedia – Claros)
In the ancient Greek world, the oracle of Apollo at Claros ranked among the major prophetic centers, alongside Delphi in mainland Greece and Didyma near Miletus. Archaeology shows that the sanctuary was in use from at least the late 13th century BC and continued to attract pilgrims until the 4th century AD, when the spread of Christianity led to its abandonment – meaning over a thousand years of continuous religious activity.
(Source: Turkish Archaeological News – Claros
ANAMED – “Klaros: An Oracular Center of Apollo in Western Anatolia”)
Mythological traditions link the foundation of Claros to Manto, daughter of the Theban seer Tiresias, and to Apollo himself. An earlier sacred cave near the later temple suggests that the site may first have been a cult-place of the Anatolian mother goddess Cybele, later reinterpreted as an oracle of Apollo Clarius when Greek settlers arrived. Protogeometric pottery and early altars show that the area was a sacred landscape long before the monumental temple was built.
(Source: Turkish Archaeological News – Claros
Wikipedia – Claros)
The sanctuary of Claros preserves an unusually complete picture of how an ancient oracle worked, thanks to its architectural layout:
- A large Temple of Apollo in Doric order, with a subterranean adyton and underground corridors where the inspired prophet delivered responses.
- A monumental altar in front of the temple for large-scale sacrifices.
- A propylon (monumental gate) and colonnaded porticoes framing the sacred area.
- The catagogion, a complex of rooms where priests and visitors stayed during consultations.
Together, these elements make Claros a key site for understanding the ritual and spatial organisation of Greek oracles.
(Source: Visitİzmir – Claros Archaeological Site
ANAMED – Claros article
Scholarly paper – A Sanctuary Archaeopark: Claros (Academia.edu))
One of the most striking features of Claros is the sculptural group of Apollo, Artemis and Leto, originally more than 7 metres high, of which considerable fragments survive. In addition, the steps, bases and walls of the sanctuary are densely covered with Greek inscriptions – dedications, decrees and, in some cases, the full text of oracles. Taken together, these inscriptions form one of the largest epigraphic corpora from any single sanctuary in the Greek world.
(Source: Turkish Archaeological News – Claros
Wikipedia – Claros)
The first systematic investigations at Claros were undertaken by Carl Schuchhardt in 1886; later work by Theodore Macridy and Charles Picard in the early 20th century uncovered the monumental entrance and major parts of the temple. From the late 20th century onwards, excavations led by French and Turkish teams – and, since 2001, by Prof. Nuran Şahin – have transformed Claros into a well-documented archaeological park, with standing columns, re-erected architectural blocks and clear visitor paths. Many of the sculptures and smaller finds are displayed in the İzmir Archaeology Museum.
(Source: İzmir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism – Claros (Menderes)
Claros excavations – summarized in ANAMED article
Wikipedia – Claros and Nuran Şahin)