This sanctuary was especially venerated and celebrated in antiquity on account of a strange phenomenon said to occur there: as in the case of the Artemis Kyndias at Bargylia, on the Artemis Astias of Iasos no drop of rain or flake of snow ever fell (Polybius, XVI, 12, 4). According to Pliny the Elder (36.12), the archaic statue of Artemis was the work of the famous sculptors Boupalos and Athenis, while Polybius indicates that the image of the divinity was not placed inside a temple, but in the open. What we see today is the result of works carried out in the area at various periods, beginning in late classical times.

From this area comes one of the most important inscriptions so far discovered in Iasos: the letter in which Laodice, wife of Antiochus III, takes measures to help citizens affected by the earthquake of Rhodes of 228 BC. The text includes the grateful reply of the inhabitants of Iasos (now in the Antiquarium).

Exploratory excavation to the east of the bouleuterion has brought to light ceramic material from the Geometric, Orientalizing, Archaic and Classical periods. Particularly fine are the fragments of an Orientalizing oinochoe of the ‘Middle Wild Goat Style I’ (7th century BC), decorated with rows of animal figures, lotus flowers and gryphons flanking the Tree of Life.