The Library of Celsus was built as a tomb. Tiberius Julius Aquila raised it around 117 CE over the burial vault of his father, the proconsul Celsus Polemaeanus, whose sarcophagus still lies beneath the reading room floor — an arrangement Roman law generally forbade inside city walls, and one granted here by exception. Ephesus was never a small place. Under Augustus it served as capital of the Roman province of Asia, a harbour city of perhaps 200,000 people at its height, second in the eastern Mediterranean only to Alexandria. The Temple of Artemis stood on its plain, counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; today a single reassembled column marks the site. The harbour itself is gone. The Küçük Menderes river silted the inlet steadily over centuries until the sea withdrew some five kilometres west, stranding the docks and emptying the warehouses. Ephesus did not fall so much as dry out. What that slow abandonment preserved is unusual. Marble streets, a theatre cut for 25,000 spectators, latrines, a brothel, terraced houses with mosaic floors and painted walls — the city survives at the scale of daily life rather than monument alone. This is the practical reason an ephesus tour from izmir airport has become the standard first move for travellers landing at Adnan Menderes: the archaeological site sits roughly 70 kilometres south near Selçuk, close enough to fold into an arrival day. The Terrace Houses, sheltered under a protective canopy since 2006, hold frescoes of theatre masks and mythological scenes that were painted for private families, not emperors. Excavation has run continuously under Austrian direction since 1895, and the work is not finished — current estimates place the exposed portion at well under a fifth of the ancient city. The Ephesus Experience Museum, opened in Selçuk in 2024, now projects reconstructions of the harbour and Curetes Street across immersive galleries; entry is bundled into the 40 EUR site fee, which covers both the Ancient City and the museum per person. UNESCO inscribed the site in 2015. A guided ephesus tour from izmir airport typically pairs the ruins with the House of the Virgin Mary on Bülbül Dağı and the Basilica of St. John, giving the Byzantine and early Christian layers their due alongside the Hellenistic and Roman city. Ephesus tour from izmir airport tickets sell year-round; the ruins keep the same hours every day, and the marble does not change.