Pergamon Asclepion

The Asclepion was one of the three great healing sanctuaries of the ancient world, dedicated to Asclepius and at its height in the second century CE, when Galen - born in Pergamon and later physician in Rome - trained and practised here. Treatment combined the practical and the ritual: patients drank and bathed in the sacred spring, followed diets, exercised, listened to music and theatre in the small odeon, and slept in the incubation rooms so that their dreams could be interpreted by priests as instructions for a cure. A colonnaded sacred way runs into the site from the ancient road, and a vaulted underground passage leads from the courtyard to the round treatment building, with openings in the roof through which voices could be projected. The complex includes a library, latrines and a theatre seating three and a half thousand. It is part of the UNESCO listing for Pergamon and sits well below the acropolis, so it needs its own visit.

What you actually see

• The sacred way - the colonnaded approach into the sanctuary.
• The underground passage - the vaulted tunnel to the treatment rooms.
• The sacred spring - the water at the centre of the cure.
• The theatre and library - the sanctuary's public buildings.

When to go

April to June and September to October, in the morning - the site is open and shadeless and Bergama summers are very hot.

Honest expectations

It is a separate site and a separate ticket from the acropolis above, and the two together make a full day. There is almost no shade. Interpretation on site is limited.

Nearby

The Pergamon acropolis is above the town by cable car; the Red Basilica is in Bergama itself.