This temple in honour of god Asclepius was built in Pergamon – modern day Bergama – in the 4th century BCE. The period of development of Asclepieion coincided with the flourishing of the Kingdom of Pergamon, and the centre reached its hights in Roman era. The Asclepieion was the most important medical center of the period with its theatre, library, baths, sacred fountain, underground tunnel opening to a Circular Treatment Structure, and sleeping or Incubation rooms. Ansklepion was a very well suited sanctuary with Serpent decorated columns…
In Pergamon’s Asclepieion, different approaches was applied to heal the patients. Some of these treatments were climatotherapy (climate therapy), idrotherapy (water therapy), aromatherapy (treatment with herbs), diet therapy, hypnotherapy (sleep therapy), musicotherapy, psychotherapy, mud baths and massages.
Patients were made to drink from the waters flowing through the valley where the city of Pergamon was established, as it was believed by the Asclepiad (priest-doctors) to be sacred and healing.
The most famous person associated with the Asclepieion in Pergamon was Claudius Galen. He was born in Pergamon in 129 CE. His father, Nicon, was a wealthy architect. At that time, Pergamon was a very influential centre of science and culture, attracting many philosophers both Stoic and Platonic. Young Galen was exposed to their ideas. His father planned a career for him in politics and philosophy, but one night god Asclepius appeared to him in his dream and sent Galen to study medicine. Galen began studying medicine at this Asclepieion at the age of 16.
The Asclepieion was not a hospital in the modern sense, but a fusion of religious ritual and empirical medicine, hosting one of the famed symbol of medicine: the serpent. Here, Galen observed the full spectrum of healing arts.
- Photos by Alara Ozkan and Egemen Cihanoglu (August 2024)
- Edited by Efe Küsmez (October 2025)
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