Klazomenai Ancient City Olive Workshop

Klazomenai or Clazomenae, one of the ancient settlements of Izmir, is one of the 12 Ionian cities. Located on Karantina Island, where Urla Bone Hospital is located, this ancient city used to extend from Limantepe across the island to Ayyıldız and Cankurtaran hills.

The classical period cemetery of the settlement is located in the region where the Klazomenai-Hypkremnos-Erythrai Antique Road passes, in the west of the chain formed by Ayyıldız and Cankurtaran hills. The city was divided into two by the İzmir-Çeşmealtı road in the prehistoric period.

This ancient city was first identified and introduced by Ekrem Akurgal in 1950. In 1979, the excavations were started by Güven Bakır. Since the calendars show 1980, excavations have been continued by Hayat Erkanal.

The top layer of the excavations carried out in the Olive Workshop of the Ancient City of Klazomenai includes the Archaic and Classical ages, followed by another layer dated to the second half of 2000 BC, also known as the Late Bronze Age. In the Early Bronze Age layer dated to 3000 BC, it is possible to evaluate the first urbanization event in the western Anatolian coastal region from an economic and spiritual point of view. In addition, traces of the Chalcolithic Age dated to 4000 BC were also found during the studies in Klazomenai.

The "Olive Workshop", which gave its name to the ancient city, comes from the discovery of an olive workshop dated to the 6th century BC. Although it is not known when the wild olives in Anatolia were rehabilitated today, it was found that the water in the olives was used in the separation process and the oil was separated with hot water.

The olive oil workshop, the excavation of which was completed in Klazomenai, proves that the technology used in the world today was first developed in these lands 2600 years ago.