South Byzantine Gate

The South Byzantine Gate is one of the fortified entrances built into the walls that enclosed a contracted Hierapolis during the Late Antique period, within what is now the Pamukkale World Heritage Site in Denizli province. It is dated to the fifth century AD, when the inhabitants of Hierapolis, like many cities in Asia Minor after earthquakes and shifting conditions, reduced the area they occupied and raised new circuit walls for protection, commonly reusing stone, column drums, and carved blocks salvaged from the city's earlier Roman-era monuments. The gate formed one of the controlled points of access into this smaller, walled Byzantine settlement, which had grown up around and partly over the Roman city's earlier street grid and colonnaded avenues. Today it survives as part of the Hierapolis archaeological zone, one of several Byzantine-period gates documented at the site.