In September 2025, archaeologists in Turkey announced several major discoveries. In Cappadocia's Göreme region, a 5th-century necropolis was uncovered beneath a road, containing nearly 50 graves, rock-cut living spaces, and artifacts such as reliquary crosses, coins, and jewellery, with plans to transform the site into an archaeopark. Meanwhile, excavations at Phoenix Ancient City in Muğla revealed an Early Iron Age tumulus, stepped pyramidal tombs, Byzantine structures, and evidence of ancient farming and olive-oil production, while in Şanlıurfa a new site called Mendik Tepe — possibly older than Göbekli Tepe — was identified, showing early buildings that suggest permanent settlement and food storage practices. Finally, archaeologists working at Sagalassos, one of the cities of Pisidia, found a large building which likely hosted the organized activities of Roman-era associations roughly 1,800 years ago.

I have never been a fan of the reconstruction of ancient cities, for me much of their history is not just in the ruins themselves but in the earthquakes, battles and other disasters that have befallen these sites. The mysteries hidden in the ruins, the broken fragments of times gone by. For example, the column that once stood so majestically at the temple of Apollo in Didyma, now lays in an aesthetic, concertinaed pattern behind the sanctuary. One can almost feel the earth shaking and imagine the mighty columns swaying before they fell. You can almost hear the reverberating, thunderous noise they made as they toppled to earth. It must have been a terrifying experience, had anyone witnessed it. The ruins tell their own story, so I believe it would be a travesty to reconstruct them and to destroy this part of their history.