Archaeologists excavating the ancient Greek sanctuary of Apollo Smintheus in the broader area of ancient Troy in modern-day northwestern Turkey have discovered a stone mortar dating back around 1,500 years. This is providing experts with fresh evidence of the Christian community that made its home among the ruins of the once-famous pagan sanctuary.
The discovery was made during the 2026 excavation season at Smintheion, near the modern village of Gülpınar (near the ancient Greek Amaxitos) in northwestern Turkey. Archaeologists also uncovered large ceramic storage vessels, or pithoi, belonging to a later phase of settlement around 1,200 to 1,300 years ago.
Instead of abandoning the site following the decline of pagan worship and the rise of early Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), its later inhabitants appear to have adapted the monumental buildings around them to a very different way of life.
The people who once came here to worship Apollo had been replaced by Christian farmers.
Excavation director Professor Davut Kaplan of Turkey’s Ondokuz Mayıs University said two separate Late Antique occupation levels have now been identified above the floor of a Roman bath. The earlier community, dating approximately to the sixth century AD, used the area for everyday domestic and agricultural activities.
The newly discovered stone mortar belonged to this phase and was probably used to process agricultural produce. Archaeologists have also found evidence of probably an actual Christian church and living spaces connected with the settlement. The later Christian layer, dating roughly to the eighth or ninth century, produced the large storage jars.
From Apollo’s sanctuary to a Christian village
This transformation is particularly important to archaeologists because Smintheion was no ordinary sanctuary.
Apollo Smintheus was one of the most distinctive forms of the Greek god Apollo worshipped in the ancient area of Troy. The epithet Smintheus has traditionally been connected with mice, and the cult may have portrayed Apollo as a divine protector against the rodents that threatened agricultural communities.
The sanctuary’s importance is also mentioned in Homer. Apollo Smintheus is invoked by the priest Chryses at the very beginning of Homer’s Iliad. After Agamemnon refuses to release Chryses’ daughter, the priest calls upon Apollo, who responds by sending a deadly plague against the Achaean army.
The Hellenistic temple erected at Smintheion centuries later preserved this Homeric connection in stone. Its elaborate sculptural decoration included scenes associated with the Iliad and the wider Trojan epic tradition, something scholars have described as exceptional among surviving Hellenistic temple programs.
Ondokuz Mayıs University describes Smintheion as one of the most important sanctuaries of the ancient Troad, second only to the sanctuary of Athena at Troy. Excavations begun in 1980 have revealed the Temple of Apollo, a sacred road, residences, water installations and several Roman-period baths.
Roman underfloor heating found beneath Christian settlement
The latest excavations are concentrating on the so-called Western Bath. Beneath the Christian houses, archaeologists uncovered in recent years a roughly 1,700-year-old Roman caldarium, or hot room, together with parts of its hypocaust system. Hot air circulated beneath a raised floor and through the structure to heat the bathing rooms. This was a sophisticated engineering system widely used throughout the Roman world.
Yet the Christian settlement above it tells a markedly different story. Recent archaeological research into Smintheion and its surrounding countryside has identified extensive evidence for agriculture during the Late Antique and Byzantine periods. Researchers have documented installations associated with wine and olive production, suggesting that the economy of the communities living around the former sanctuary became strongly tied to the land.
The newly discovered mortar and storage jars now add the everyday objects of those inhabitants to that broader picture. This was a sanctuary known to generations of Greeks through Homer that gradually ceased to be a place where Apollo received prayers and offerings. Centuries later, people were still living among its buildings but they were Christians cultivating crops, storing food and building their homes over the remains of the ancient world.
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