Seven Sleepers cemetery (Ephesus)

The Seven Sleepers cave of Ephesus is a complex consisting of an extensive necropolis and a church, located on the northeast side of the mountain Panayır Dağı near the ancient city of Ephesus at Selçuk in the Turkish province of İzmir. According to legend, this was the cave where the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus slept for 200 years and thus escaped the Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Decius.

According to this legend, the Christian emperor Theodosius II, whose reign was 401–450, had the church built over the cave, in which the seven youths awoke and subsequently died peacefully; the church is now a ruin. It was a domed church with an apse and niches and burial niches in all walls, beneath whose floor a series of catacombs is located. The ceiling and the walls of the church bear remnants of relief ornaments and paintings. A nearby limestone fissure and a room equipped with a barrel vault are considered the burial place of the Seven Sleepers. In the surrounding area there are numerous burial sites of various types, wall niches, sarcophagi, burial chambers and mausoleums. The district was a pilgrimage site in Byzantine times, Christian pilgrims recorded testamentary wishes, perhaps in hope of resurrection, to be buried there. Prayers directed to the seven youths are placed on the walls.

In the course of research in Ephesus, the Austrian Archaeological Institute also carried out excavations there in 1927 and uncovered the buildings now visible. The finds are displayed in the Hall of Grave Finds in the Ephesus Museum in Selçuk.