Anatolia’s geography and cultural history has long attracted Westerners. The number of travellers and researchers visiting the region increased notably after the Ottoman Empire established closer relations with the West during the 16th century. Rich in inscriptions and architectural remains, the ancient city of Teos captivated several researchers. With the financial support of the British Society of Dilettanti, a research team consisting of Richard Chandler, Nicholas Revett, and William Pars reached Smyrna (Izmir) on 1764, and stayed there until 1765. Data on this research was published in the first volume of the Antiquities of Ionia. His studies focused on the Temple of Dionysus, which, according to Vitruvius, was the work of the architect Hermogenes of Priene.
The first systematic archaeological excavations started in 1862, again at the initiative and with the financial support of the Society of Dilettanti. Architect Richard Popplewell Pullan directed these studies, which focused on the Temple of Dionysus. In 1861, the Society of Dilettanti commissioned Pullan to gather detailed information about the state of certain temples in ancient cities and prepare a report on those deemed worth excavating. The research was interrupted during the first World War, before resuming in 1921, 1924, and 1925, when French researchers started worked on the site. Yves Béquignon and A. Laumonier were granted permission to continue archaeological excavations and research in Teos between 1924 – 1925.
After two seasons of excavations in Teos by the French team, the first excavations by Turkish archaeologists were carried out between 1962 and 1967 under the direction of Associate Professor Yusuf Boysal and Dr Baki Öğün from the Faculty of Language, History and Geography at Ankara University. In order to investigate the main structures of the city and its early history, excavations took place in the agora, on the Hellenistic Wall, on the Acropolis, in the area between the west temenos wall and the Hellenistic Wall, to the west of the Temple of Dionysus, and finally some 100 metres south of the ancient theatre, where the cavea of the bouleuterion (council building) and the stage building of the theatre are located.
The architect Duran Mustafa Uz opened a few trenches in the Temple of Dionysus between 1980 and 1992. Uz completed his doctoral thesis on ‘The Temple of Dionysus in Teos’ at Dokuz Eylül University in 1987, however he passed away unexpectedly and Numan Tuna, from the Middle East Technical University, took over the studies. Tuna, who carried out short-term surveys in the ancient city between 1993 and 1996.
The excavation and restoration works, which started again in 2010, were carried out by Ankara Universty, Faculty of Language, History – Geography, Classical Archaeology Department Lecturer Prof. Dr. Musa Kadıoğlu.