the local archaeological museum

In 2006 the archaeological excavation of hadrianoupolis in south-western paphlagonia was inaugurated by a team from dokuz eylül university, izmir, under the direction of dr ergün lafli. As a result of our 2005 surveys of the area, it had been confirmed that hadrianoupolis was indeed coincident with modern eskipazar, with finds dating from the 1st century bc to the 8th century ad. It also was determined that the core of the ancient city extended as far as the modern village of budaklar and its surrounding districts of haci ahmetler, çayli and eleler, along the eskipazar-mengen highway for 8 km east-west and 3 km north-south.

In 2003 the local archaeological museum of eregli had already undertaken a small-scale salvage excavation at the main church of hadrianoupolis, known as 'early byzantine church b', situated in the centre of the ancient city. The field surveys in 2005 identified the remains of at least 14 buildings at the site. Among them are two bath buildings of the late roman period, two early byzantine churches, a fortified structure of the byzantine period, a possible theatre, a vaulted building, a domed building and some domestic buildings with mosaic floors. In 2006 trenches were opened to investigate two of the best preserved of these buildings: bath building a and early byzantine church a. In 2007 'bath a', 'bath b', a late roman villa, an apsidal early byzantine building, as well as two roman monumental rock-cut graves were excavated. The 2008 and 2009 seasons concentrated on the restoration of these surface finds.

In general, these six campaigns have established that hadrianoupolis was a fortified regional centre during the late roman and early byzantine period (5th-7th centuries), when it can easily be defined as a polis with civic buildings and a fairly large urban population, as well as an extensive rural agrarian population. Most of the visible surface remains belong to this period. Roman and earlier remains seem to consist almost exclusively of inscriptions, rock-cut graves, some cultic monuments and a small amount of pottery (including sigillata), but not civic buildings. It seems that the city was abandoned during the 8th century. It also seems to be much more intact than pompeioupolis. Of course, there is nothing left of gangra, so hadrianoupolis is really the only large settlement of inland paphlagonia that can be excavated.