April 29 - Ancient Greece in Turkey

Just about 20 kilometers northeast of Kusadasi lies the ancient Byzantine City of Ephesus. This huge excavation has yielded nearly a square kilometer of well preserved ruins. With stabilization efforts having been made, they are even more impressive and draw tremendous crowds on an average day.

It is well known that the strategic location of the town, bordered by mountains on two sides and what was at the time a natural harbor on the third side, provided excellent land to sea transfers of goods from the silk road. Here goods coming from China and Mongolia could be loaded onto boats bound for Mediterranean ports such as Greece and Italy to the west. Likewise goods could and did flow in the opposite direction as well.

Ancient artifacts have been uncovered that point out that the location was inhabited several thousand years before the Greeks arrived and colonized it to a more sophisticated degree. A library was built on the site, an impressive one by ancient standards, and this one was known as the third largest library in the ancient world. The largest library was in Alexandria, Egypt and the second largest was located elsewhere in what is now modern Turkey.

An amphitheater that could seat 25,000 people further helps to give scope to the immense scale of what was created on this site. During our wanderings, we discovered apartment buildings for the ordinary folks of the time, preserved as apartment complexes, and housed within a modern, open-air rigid tent-like structure that helps keep the sun and UV rays out while allowing the exchange of fresh air to keep the site cool. Pictures are below and this modern structure is something to behold on its own.

The city saw its demise through a serious of earthquakes; one in 17 CE and another, more devastating series of quakes in the 3^rd and 4^th centuries CE. It was likely the largest one that hit around 614 CE that led to the ultimate decline of the city and signaled its end. During our tour, we saw apartment buildings that were built in to the ruins of the former instances of the city. Simpler in design and less elaborate, it showed that the rebuilding efforts were not often to the level of the initial constructions.

One other factoid that spelled the death of the city was the silting of the natural harbor that this city lay at the mouth of. The river which flowed down to the sea and past the city also deposited, over time, larger amounts of silt that slowly filled in the harbor and turned it to marsh and later to fields.

Our other visit to an ancient city was to the the temple of Athena and the surrounding community established in the ancient planned city of Priene. Priene began its life as an Ionian Greek City around the 8^th century BCE but was relocated to its higher, current site on the mountain known as Mount Mycale in the 4^th century BCE. The Maendar river flowed below the city and into the natural harbor at the base of the city. And, just so you know, the modern day word, meander originates from the river of the same name, here in Turkey. Wow. That is a cool funfact to learn!

The city itself is remarkably well preserved and some reconstruction to get a few of the columns of Athena's temple upright were made in order to give a scale to the dimensions of this impressive structure. An amphitheater and many small buildings along with the remains of the Agora (marketplace) were another treat to find in our discoveries.

A grid like layout to the city was based upon the teachings of Hippodamus of Miletus. It is a well known and documented fact that Alexander the Great himself visited the city and, taking a liking to it, help fund the building of the temple to Athena.

Beyond the city, or perhaps I should say behind it, lies a very rugged mountain. The mountain provided defense from any possible attackers from this direction, while its perch several hundred meters above the floodplain below gave ample visual warning to any possible attack in that direction. That mountain looked to us to have the potential to a pretty darn good view and so, with Gary's find of a trail map (or suggestion of one), we bushwhacked our way upward through the woods at the base of the mountain until we ran in the trail itself.

Running steeply upwards with few switchbacks, the trail quickly climbed above the level of the trees and into a scree and rock zone where we picked our way upward to a point where we commanded not only an excellent and even more wide sweeping view of the valley below, but also of the ancient city now far below us. Let us just say that it was so steep that when one large rock let loose when stepped upon, it rolled and bounced its way down the slope passing by Gary and continuing on down without impediment. The reward for surviving this hike was an incomparable view and an education of the master designers who created this thriving mini-Ephesus of a city.

Hiking down the mountain and back into town, we grabbed the next minibus back into town where we met up with our couch surfing host and headed back to his house to get cleaned up and to meet up with his girlfriend for dinner at her place and a night of amazing Latin dancing in Kusadasi. With all of these amazing adventures, we were sad to say goodbye to our host the next morning as we shared hugs and set off by minibus to the long distance bus terminal for our two hour trip to our next destination, Izmir, Turkey. That's a city that will need a post in its own right, so I will leave you, dear reader, with the opportunity to read my next entry while I, very tired and still battling a cold (along with Gary too) to a well deserved rest tonight. Enjoy the captioned pictures below.... Cheers.

Library of Celsus - Third largest of the ancient world

The arched Portal Gates to the main city are visible in this picture

Under a modern open air structure, we visit the many dwellings and meeting places of the city

Gary entering one of the many passages within the city itself

The symmetric patterns of marble are called "bookends". They were made by drawing a steel cable repeatedly over the marble with a sand abrasive. The sheets of marble were only centimeters thick and were polished and opened up like a book to display the magnificent patterns.

Exquisite paintings on the marble could be found everywhere. This one is about 2,000 years old

So many rooms to discover and the open air roof keeps the sun off and keeps it cool to explore

Exquisite mosaics - this one a lion. Lions once roamed through Anatolia but were mostly extirpated by the time Ephesus was built. Still they carried on in legend

Medusa is up to her tricks. What is she thinking? Could she really turn people into stone?

A bird with a peace offering

Amazing that these arches still stand after so long, even through multiple earthquakes

The main road leading up from the port and through the city. Paved and still in remarkably good condition

One of the smaller amphitheaters in the upper city

Gary is now Hercules

Kristen is holding up the columns. Good job Kristen

Our Host for CouchSurfing has created an amazing breakfast for our second day

Here we are, day two, at the ancient city of Priene and the main amphitheater

The plan for the Temple of Athena in Priene. You'll see the actual remains below....

The temple had collapsed from the many earthquakes but these columns remain to show the scale of the project, funded by Alexander the Great himself

Gary surveys the view from this strategic hillside city site

Another view of the temple and with many of the pieces of collapsed columns, like gears, laying about

An eerie if not somewhat odd graveyard of column pieces. Remember that the ancient Greeks had sophisticated cranes and means of hoisting these pieces to their intended positions

A view of the amphitheater from the bleacher seats high in back.

We've decided to try to climb as high as we can on the mountain behind the temple. It's practically straight up

This picture does no justice to the steepness of the trail. We had to use handholds in the rocks to get up here.

I told you this was steep! Now those fertile fields you see out there were once, in the time of the city, part of a bay of the ocean. The river Maender slowly silted up the harbor.

Do I look pooped out? I am!

This is about as high as we are going to try

We called it quits on ascending any higher when we got to these cliffs

But what a great view

The river below the city is called the Maender. Did you know that the word "meander" comes from this winding river's name? It's true!

Only after we descended the mountain did we see this sign warning us not to climb the mountain. Nevertheless, it would appear someone is trying to strangle me to death.