Thursday began in a conversation between Suzanne and the hotel's parrot
followed by my breakfast
and Suzanne's
as I
decided to take pictures around the breakfast room
and Suzanne captured me
and then did the same before we headed off to Ephesus.
Once at Ephesus, we were greeted by this excellent sign
which amused Suzanne
as she made her way
to connect with Rashid, our guide
but I had one more picture to take
before we entered the ruin which at first looked like many ruins we have seen in the past with broken columns across vast areas.
and the occasional capstone
as we were called upon to use our imagination to see what we were seeing and how the ancients might have lived here
but then Rashid pointed out this symbolism which exists even today and derives letters from the wheel to represent the Greek Orthodoxy
and we went back to columns along a main road
|
before entering a small auditorium with the promise that there was a much larger auditorium to come
|
and the crowd of people gave the sense that there might be a real performance here today
but this path
led me
and this path
led Suzanne away, so we weren't going to be the performers
even as we moved further down the road of columns and began to get a first grasp of what it is that makes Ephesus so remarkable
|
including statues built to rulers
and long roads
and hooks in the sidewalk
all set against a backdrop of the region.
As we marched on and saw more momentos
Rashid pointed our symbolism
and we made our way along the path beginning to realize that while we are used to seeing the occasional spectacle left from an ancient city, what we were seeing here was the whole city (or, at least a large fraction of it) and that we could easily begin to put together what life was like in the city. There were streets where the merchants were, locations where the houses were, ...
|
and the original plumbing was in the ground. Indeed we later saw similar plumbing in the ground in a more modern city.
And so we moved on taking pictures too numerous to document of one building after another and beginning to grasp the vastness of the city we were in
|
until scenes such as this made us realize that we were seeing a whole city and not just a few isolated (and remarkable) ruins.
Even with a focus on the local
it was hard to ignore the scale of the scale
as the first view of the library came into focus
but there was still a lot of city to explore before we got there
though the library continued to be an icon in the distance
as we explored among the columns
and statues
and made our way along the roads
|
until we paused to admire this mosaic floor preserved for 2000 years
|
and the buildings aligning the road
|
often with remarkable friezes
|
and archways that defined spaces
|
and decorations that looked remarkably swastika-like even way back then
and this led us
to the public latrine
where this was a typical seat
among a row of seats
and so I tried it
and then Suzanne and Rashid did
before we recorded the path that the plumbing took
and made our way
|
towards the remarkable library
|
where Suzanne posed with Sophia (wisdom)
and this sign told us what we already knew
as we explored
|
and noted who had done the reconstruction
as the columns impressed
and Suzanne noted my presence
even as we found some of the original text
and captured more photos
|
before finding our way down the steps
to the place where there was a menorah carved into the steps
and then we made our way down the path
under the library
and along the columns
|
until we reached the large auditorium
where we entered
and first captured its vastness
as I noted on the stage
that Suzanne was performing
and then recorded her walk across the stage
|
and the vastness of the seating
as she made her way to where I Was sitting
and we took this photo of ourselves
and then headed in our directions
|
so that Suzanne could find her way back to the stage where I now was.
As we exited the town, there were more columns
and no smoking signs
as the path was set
to lead us to these milestones
and then a full map of the region
along with another of the genuine fake watch signs
put us back in the car for further exploration
|
and our next stop was the Temple of Diana (one of the seven wonders of the ancient world) which looked like this back in the day
but is now 1 column with a pelican roosted on top
in the midst of a military area.
Nonetheless we explored the area
and made our way to the column
which is now along a swamp
and made our way
to capture the pieces we could see before letting our imaginations do the rest of the work
|
before leaving through this field of daisies.
Our next stops were in Selcuk where we were given tours of local merchants, no doubt to encourage us to support the local economy. We began with lunch at the place where rugs are made with a host of foods
including this spinach pie with very delicate pastry
and these foods which assured we would over eat
before the karpuz came.
Our demonstration of how rugs are made including a piece on the silkworm from which silk strands are taken to weave the rugs
nd then we saw the wool used
and the various dyes
before we were given a demonstration of many many rugs we could think of buying
|
with a belief (theirs not ours) that Suzanne
was starting to focus in on the rug she would buy
|
which was one of these few
two of which could be ours for $4000
and with a final picture
we took their business card
and headed to the museum in the town where we began with these backgammon tables
and then saw statues
some erotic
but most being busts
and then mosaics
not to mention scenes
followed by statues in toto and in pieces
|
and a pedant
and a sundial
as we made our way
to the sarcophagy
|
leading to these murals that showed the history of the region starting with its founding by Amazons and working through the Greeks and the Romans
and then we were back to museum fare, much of it quite impressive when you realize that the city we saw in the morning which felt fairly complete gave rise to all of these pieces and many many more still to be unearthed.
|
I particularly liked the mosaic floors which now seem to entertain cats on hots days
|
and then there was a variety of statuary
|
and inscriptions
|
as we made our way about
|
pausing for some backgammon tables
and some ancient coins
before passing one more piece
and a bath tub
and then making our way out
to see some of the history recorded in text
before heading to the leather and ceramic shops where at the latter of these we had a demonstration of the construction of a pot
and got an explanation of the wine flasks used in ancient times where it was designed so that as you poured wine for your guest, you also bowed to your guest (the large ring fitting over your shoulder) thereby making wine a social sign of respect.
After the busy day, we were back to the airport where our flight was an hour late but dinner was still served in a great rush and we were eventually back in Istanbul at a different hotel.
|