Colossae lies twenty-five kilometres east of Denizli and two kilometres north of the town of Honaz. The road to Honaz, which leaves the Denizli–Ankara highway at the organised industrial zone at its sixteenth kilometre, runs straight through the ancient city.
The city stands north of Mount Honaz, the ancient Cadmus, on the bank of the Aksu stream, on the southern eastward road that has been used since antiquity. It was among the most important centres of greater Phrygia, and Xenophon counts it one of the six great cities of that country.
Colossae saw its brightest days under Persian rule. From the third century BC, with the founding of Hierapolis and Laodicea, it lost its importance, and in the first century AD it was wrecked by the earthquake of Nero's reign. Between AD 692 and 787 a city called Chonae was founded where the town of Honaz now stands, and Colossae was abandoned altogether after an earthquake. The old sources tell us that Chonae had a church of Saint Michael, and the remains of an Ottoman castle survive there.
The remains of Colossae are found on the mound that formed its acropolis and on the land around it. In the area north of the mound are rock-cut chamber tombs and house-shaped tombs.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Denizli as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6 °C in January to 27.5 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (90 mm) and lightest in August (11 mm). Long-term means for 1957-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Getting there
- Access
- It lies 25 km east of Denizli and 2 km north of Honaz.
