Exploring this evocative archaeological site and its accompanying museum allows you to immerse yourself in a strategic Greek, and later Roman, trading port. A lively audio guide commentary (included in the price) unravels the history of the Greek town in the lower part of the site, before leading you to the Roman town , with its reconstructed forum. The museum exhibits the top finds, including a statue of Asclepius, god of medicine, dating to the 2nd century BC.
Traders from Phocaea, pushing on from a trading post at Masilia (Marseille in France), set up shop here in the 7th century BC at what is now the charming village of Sant Martí d’Empúries, then an island. Soon afterwards they founded a mainland colony, Emporion (Market), which remained an important trading centre and conduit of Greek culture to the Iberians for centuries.
In 218 BC Roman legions clanked ashore to cut off Hannibal’s supply lines in the Second Punic War. Around 195 BC they set up a military camp and by 100 BC had added a town. A century later the Roman town had merged with the Greek one. Emporiae, as the place was then known, was abandoned in the late 3rd century AD, after raids by Germanic tribes. Later, an early Christian basilica and a cemetery stood on the site of the Greek town, before the whole place disappeared under the sands for a millennium until its excavation in the 20th century. Barely a quarter of the site has been excavated so far.
Points of interest in the Greek ruins include the thick southern defensive walls , the site of the Asklepion (a shrine to the god of medicine) with a copy of his statue found here, and the agora (town square), with remnants of the early Christian basilica and the Greek stoa (market complex) beside it.
The larger Roman town includes the palatial House 1 , source of many of the finest mosaics. Outside the walls are the remains of an oval amphitheatre .
A new visitor centre is slowly being constructed at the site so expect prices to go up when it's complete. Empúries is 1km northwest of the L’Escala town centre along the coast.
