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Archaeologists working at the ancient city of Nysa in western Türkiye have uncovered an approximately 1,800-year-old stone staircase that once provided direct access from the city’s main street to its renowned Roman-era library, one of the best-preserved examples of its kind in western Anatolia.
The discovery was made during ongoing excavations in Nysa, located in the Sultanhisar district of Aydin province, and carried out under the leadership of Professor Serdar Hakan Oztaner from Ankara University’s Faculty of Language, History and Geography. The staircase resolved a long-standing question about how ancient visitors moved up from the street level to the elevated library complex.
According to Professor Oztaner, the team had previously been unable to determine how the roughly 2-meter height difference between the main street and the library was overcome. The newly revealed steps clarified this connection by showing how the street was linked directly to the library structure, making the find both significant and satisfying for the excavation team.
Nysa was a prominent Roman-era center of education and culture, famously described by the ancient geographer Strabo as a “double-sided” city because it was built across both sides of a valley. With a history stretching back more than two millennia, the city features monumental buildings such as a theater, stadium, gymnasium, agora, council house, broad colonnaded streets, the Akharaka sanctuary, and a major library.
Excavations along the main street on the western side of the city, which runs from the central bridge toward Akharaka, intensified last year as part of the national “Heritage for the Future Project.” As work advanced along this axis, archaeologists reached the exact alignment of the library and uncovered the long-sought staircase leading up from the street.
The library itself is known to have been constructed around A.D. 130, during the height of Roman influence in the region. Professor Oztaner explained that the city’s street system had already been in place since at least the reign of Emperor Augustus, and that the staircase was likely added in the second century A.D. to connect the existing street with the newly built library.
The structure consists of five stone steps that lead directly into a marble-paved courtyard located in front of the library. Notably, the staircase sits at the very center of the city block on which the library stands, showing that it was carefully planned as a formal and prominent entrance route.
Following the Library of Celsus in Ephesus, the Nysa Library is considered one of the most important and best-preserved libraries in western Anatolia.
Archaeological evidence indicates that it once contained 16 book niches, which ancient sources describe as housing significant handwritten texts of the period.
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