Tios lies in the town of Filyos, in the Çaycuma district of Zonguldak, where the Billaios river meets the Black Sea, on the ground where Paphlagonia and Bithynia met. Founded in the 7th century BC as a colony of Miletus, it was through antiquity an important harbour on the Black Sea, and river and sea transport together made it a centre for trade in fish, wine and grain. The ministry calls Tios the best-preserved ancient city in the region, and gives a concrete reason for it: the modern settlement grew up outside the ancient city rather than on top of it, which has been a real advantage both for preserving the site and for investigating it.
The place has carried the river's name in one form or another since antiquity. The district governorate traces Billaios back to a word for a water crossing with a suffix added, giving Pailaios and Billaios, and takes the modern Filyos to have come from those through gradual change of sound. The city's other name, Tieion, means according to Stephanos of Byzantium the city of Tios, after the priest who founded it. The town itself was officially renamed from Hisarönü to Filyos by government decision in April 1999.
The region passed to Persia when Cyrus put an end to the kingdom of Lydia, and then, with Paphlagonia, to Macedonia in the time of Alexander; through the Classical and Hellenistic periods it passed under the rule of one kingdom after another. Rome took it in 70 BC, and under the Byzantine empire it became the seat of a bishop. It later came under Seljuk and Genoese control — the Genoese held it from 1261 — and then passed to the Ottomans, under whom the city shrank into a small fishing village. Most of the surviving monuments are Roman, Byzantine and Genoese.
Excavation since 2006 has uncovered an acropolis with building remains on it dated to the 6th century BC, a medieval church, a Corinthian temple of the Roman period, and west of that temple a funerary chapel of the 10th to 12th centuries AD. Elsewhere on the site are the ancient harbour with its breakwaters, a Roman theatre, baths, what is thought to be an aqueduct, a water cistern, the remains of a fountain, churches both roofed and open, the cemetery area, a large cave, and a castle running out towards the sea. Filyos is reachable by both road and rail; the address is Sefercik, 67660 Filyos, Çaycuma.
Getting there
- Access
- Filyos is reached by road and by rail.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Zonguldak as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.3 °C in January to 22.1 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (154 mm) and lightest in May (55 mm). Long-term means for 1938-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:30, closed Monday
