19th century travellers
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From the 17th to the early 19th century western travellers looked in vain for the ruins of ancient Pessinous, which they located too close to the river Sangarios (present-day Sakarya). Eventually, it was the Frenchman Charles Texier who in 1834 correctly situated the site in the village of Ballıhisar. His brief one-day visit to the spot yielded a first general plan of partly observed and partly imaginatively interpreted ancient buildings. |
In the course of the 19th century travelling scholars came to visit the place at irregular intervals, but they managed only to produce some useful descriptions and transcriptions of the numerous scattered inscriptions. Still, from their reports we can learn that the demolition of the aboveground remains of buildings and monuments was proceeding rapidly. The development of the present-day village on and in among the ancient ruins explains why there are practically no ancient building remains left in their original position.