Selçuk

An excellent collection of ancient statues, pottery, glass, sarcophagi and coins found around Ephesus. Also displayed is the cult of the Anatolian mother goddess in her guises from Kybele to poly-breasted Artemis.

Ayasuluk hill was the original site of Ephesus. The fortifications you now see were built in the 7th century against Arab raids, and the citadel continued in use until the entire site was wrecked by the Mongols under Tamerlane in 1402 AD. The basilica is older, completed in 565 AD over the site of a chapel and grave of St John the Apostle. He is believed to have died in Ephesus towards 100 AD: he wrote three New Testament Epistles and is traditionally credited as the author of St John's Gospel. (He isn't the author of Revelation, by the later St John of Patmos.) The site was partly reconstructed in the 21st century.

Impressive mosque built in 1374 in the reign of Isa Bey Mehmed, ruler of the Princpality of Aydin, and modelled on the Great Mosque of Damascus. It fell into ruin in the 19th century but was rebuilt in 1975.

This is east side of Ephesus but not within the ticketed area. It's a series of catacombs, part of the Roman city necropolis - only the highest nobles were buried within city limits. The area is free to access but a gate bars entry to the tombs. They were excavated in 1927 and findings are now in the Selçuk Ephesus museum. There's little to see here, the main attraction is the legend of the "Seven Sleepers", true believers who hid or were immured here circa 250 AD in a time of religious persecution. They re-emerged 300 years later, blinking in the sunlight to find Christianity blossomed into the official Roman religion, occasion for hallelujahs and high-fives. But these guys slept around - Ephesus is just one of seven sites with the same legend, from China to Tunisia. Best documented is the cave in al-Rajib district of Amman, Jordan, where according to the Surah al-Kahf (18th book of the Qur'an) the seven were accompanied by a dog, the one thing you will see here.

Mary mother of Jesus was present at the crucifixion and almost certainly lived out her remaining life in or near Jerusalem, where there are monuments to her death and ascent to heaven. However another legend has her dwelling in Ephesus, based on John 19:26-27 whren Jesus on the cross enjoins "the disciple whom he loved" (signifying John the apostle) to look after Mary, and for her to regard John as her son. John likely moved to Ephesus but lived to a considerable age long after Mary. There was a local tradition of pilgrimage to this site, but it only came into the mainstream when Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) a German nun on her sickbed began recounting visions of a fantastical and anti-semitic nature, including the final days of Mary in Ephesus. These were recorded by Clemens Brentano, with descriptions of the house and how to find it, but he barely understood Emmerich's Westfälisch dialect and reconstructed much of it later, aided by maps and travel accounts of Ephesus, then known but unexcavated. His account published in 1852 prompted a search for the site and pilgrimage from Europe. The church studiously avoided pronouncing on the visions but beatified Emmerich, and three popes have visited the shrine.