Pessinus lies in the village of Ballıhisar on the Ankara–Eskişehir road, thirteen kilometres south of Sivrihisar, on the line of the old Royal Road. According to ancient writers the city was founded in the 8th century BC by the semi-mythical Phrygian king Midas as the sacred city of the cult of Cybele, and it is known as one of the most important places of worship of the mother goddess the Phrygians called Kybele.
Its greatest period came under the Roman emperor Augustus (27 BC–AD 14). The imposing temple was begun after his death and finished under Tiberius (AD 14–37). Holding the principal sanctuary of Cybele, Pessinus was the setting for the ceremonies held for the goddess and became over time a temple city. The Royal Road passing through it stayed in use in the Roman and Byzantine periods because it was safe and direct. In the Hellenistic age the temple was repaired and the city gained a council house, a stoa, a canal, a theatre and roads.
Excavation began here in 1967 under Ghent University in Belgium and continued intermittently until 2008; from 2009 to 2013 the work was carried out by the University of Melbourne. Alongside the temple these campaigns uncovered buildings of various plans, workshops, houses and a church, and reached the theatre, the agora, the council house and stretches of road near the ancient city. Finds are shown in the open-air display set up on the site itself and in the Eti Archaeology Museum in Eskişehir.
Strabo called Pessinus the greatest trading centre in that part of the world and noted that the temple of the Mother of the Gods stood here. The sanctuary held the goddess's idol — a black stone, probably a meteorite, said to have fallen from the sky. In 204 BC the Romans carried that stone to Rome to win their war against Carthage and named it Magna Mater, the Great Mother, and the city became the centre for those who devoted themselves to the goddess.
Stretches of the Royal Road can still be seen near the site, along with the milestones the Romans set on the roads leading here. Since 2009 the excavation has been carried on by the University of Melbourne. The open-air museum laid out on the site in 1988 shows the larger stone pieces in its garden and smaller finds in a single-storey building; the rest of the material is at the ETİ Archaeology Museum in Eskişehir.
Getting there
- Access
- At Ballıhisar, thirteen kilometres south of Sivrihisar on the Ankara–Eskişehir road.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Eskişehir as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.2 °C in January to 22.1 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in April (44 mm) and lightest in August (11 mm). Long-term means for 1991-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:00 - 17:00
