Ephesus
The next morning we landed at Kusadasi in Turkey. Landing at Ephesus was interesting to me in several ways. The first was historical, personal historical. As I mentioned a few times along the way, my first journey of this type was to Europe with a buddy in 1983. We travelled in the Greek Islands for a week, and then met his parents for a four day Greek Island cruise with this folks and his brothers. The most memorable stop was Kusadasi, which is the jumping off point for visiting the Roman City of Ephesus. It's memorable for me not only for the visit, but a picture the cruise ship photographer took of my friend and I, striding up the pier towards the ship. Tanned and young, very "American" in demeanor, Turkish flag flying over the pier behind us, having the time of our life, which we were. This picture was one that my wife picked for my 40th birthday summary, now amazingly almost five years ago. So, when I landed on the pier, I asked Kim to take the same shot from as close as the same angle as 24 years ago. But this shot was a bit different!
It's funny but part of human nature that I could not conceive of the moment above when I was having that moment 24 years ago. For my kids, it was just posing for a photograph, something they have become adept at over the past three months, but for me, standing in that spot, it was somewhat eerie, as I could sense the "me" of a different time, in the same place.
In the interim, however, Kusadasi has changed dramatically. What was a sleepy port and fishing town is now a thriving metropolis, more European in demeanor than any of us expected, albeit with mosques on the skyline instead of churches. A clean, efficient, modern port, with a shopping mall attached, flowing into a city of mid-rise apartment buildings, flowing into a countryside now increasingly covered in 2nd homes for Europeans, resort villages, even a massive water park complex.
What hadn't changed much, and if there was any changes, they were for the better, the result of another 24 years of work by archeologist the world over, was the site of Ephesus. Fo this day, we avoided the "tournami" syndrome today, and the eight of us had our own bus, driver, and guide Ayse, who was awesome, having been a guide in Ephesus for years, and spoke flawless colloquial English, and was obviously passionate about Ephesus's past.
Ephesus is one of the best preserved cities of the height of the Roman empire. There are even remnants of the significant Greek City which preceded the Roman city, as chunks of the Greek temples are seen used in the Roman temples. Call it the recycle bin of monumental building. Ephesus was a harbor city on the trading routes between Rome and the orient, and although not the scale of a Rome, was a city of over 100,000 and had all the necessary pieces. Ephesus was not destroyed by war, nor by a volcano, nor by earthquakes or plagues, but by another of Mother Nature's tricks. It was a harbor city, on a river, that the river silted up the harbor, closing off this seaborne city from the sea. There was a ship channel cut (Ayse pointed it out to us) that helped for a period of time, but then there were floods, and the raids, wars and strife (man made), and the city gradually got plundered (chunks of marble from Ephesus temples ended up on churches in Constantinople), a covered by time. The few hours we spent there were not enough, as what made this trip interesting is that we not only got to see the monumental parts of Ephesus, but we asked a lot of questions about life in Roman times, and were able to get a better glimpse of what life was like two thousand years ago. The Roman street below is closed for restoration, you can get the smallest idea of scale. This was the 'main street' as the smaller streets in the town all would have had covered walkways, and we were shown the holes on the sides of the road where the oil lamps would be!
Below is the view from the top of the town, again, a bunch more excavated sites than when I visited in 1983, yet they estimated that more than 90% of the town is still underground.
Our examination of daily life of course took us to the public toilets. This shot is tame, as I took one with my family and friends all sitting on a hole, but they would give me too much grief it I included it. T his toilet was part of a public bath complex right off the main trading area of the city, just down from the Forum area. There were about 50-60 seats in this toilet, all with running water. The walls would have been covered in plaster and fresco's , there would have been mosaics on the floor, and fountains and baths. And this was the public toilet. Some folks from the Beijing Olympic committee should send some folks here to take a look before the Olympics, as it sounds a lot nicer than the toilets we experienced months ago in China!
We then visited the Terrace Houses, which was not just a highlight of this day, but a highlight of the trip. The terrace houses were a chunk of hillside above the market areas. It looked like this to start, in the late 60's.
In the late 90's, a huge public/private funded effort began to try to bring this hillside back to life This was the 'good side' of town, but not the monumental villas of the Ephesus's patrician families. These were merchant households, and houses that although plundered over the years of valuables, are able to give an incredible glimpse into the past.
The entire site is covered, and dozens of workers are still active on site. There is an amazing clear walkway that takes one up and around the various villas. Think of the pictures below as a tour of an upscale apartment building built into a hillside. If I remember right, some of the villas were north of 1000 square meters (11,000 square feet). Social status and wealth deceased as you went up the hillside from the center of town, but were still impressive. Below is a workshop reassembling flooring, not the walls and fresco remains in the back:
My daughter found it fascinating:
All of the villas had extensive plumbing, including private bathrooms, fountains, water to the kitchens. You could see where the plumbing and drainage as in the walls and floors.
The lower buildings (i.e. wealthier) had extensive mosaics on the floor. The upper buildings had more fresco's as fresco's were less expensive than mosaics.
Note the workmanship, and realize that these were just the houses of the prosperous in a provincial outpost…Sorry that this next shot is not all that great, but it was from a distance and lighting was not perfect, but this mosaic needs to be in here…
The next picture gives you a sense of the layout and dimensions of the houses. Of course any large open space that there is not much info on is immediately called the 'family temple':
Back outside again, a few images of the 'macro' Ephesus.
The first two are of the "Library" still with inscriptions, including the rules for using the library! The bottom image is of the amphitheatre, which could hold up to 25,000 people and is still in use today for concerts. Close to the ruins is a museum of other finds from the area. They had an exceptional exhibit about gladiators. Being a gladiator was every bit as vicious as we have believed or read over the years, but counter to my perceptions, it was not as 'barbaric' as I had believed. These guys were fed well, highly trained, and highly respected in their communities if they became 'popular'. The exhibit showed the results of excavations of tombs containing gladiators. The bodies showed the types of wounds, how the wounds were treated, and a sense of how the gladiators lived and died.
There was even a record of some gladiators which by reading gives you a sense of the life:
One thing is to judge the 'fight to the death' but the reality is that for humanity up until about 100 years ago, death was always a lot closer to daily life than it exists today. Heck, much of their food wast still clucking or baaing when they picked it out of the market. Public executions were part of life even into this century. So while I can't conceive of seeing a gladiatorial battle, and the thought makes me a bit ill, it *was* a different world. The gladiator above that really pops out is the guy that at 30 years old had survived 34 fights, with 21 victories, 9 draws, and 4 defeats (it says always pardoned above). This guy must have been a crowd pleaser, as he obviously was not a great gladiator. If you discount the fact that he may have killed a dozen or more people in his victories, not sure how his life is much different than the race car driver that lives fast and dies young at 30, or the football player that dies in his 40's from abuse that his body took during his career. He obviously wasn't fighting every week, or even every month, must have been injured grievously a bunch of times, but still made it to 30 in a time where life expectancy was less than 40. Impressive. The 48 year old is also telling, as the 20 years of service means that he was a Legionnaire with 20 years of service prior to becoming a gladiator.
A couple of interesting things. When we were leaving the site, I noticed this chunk of temple wall in the distance, with the stones precariously perched.
As the region is seismically active, I asked our guide about this. She said that she notices these blocks every day when she comes to Ephesus, and that somehow, even after earthquakes, the stones are still there. You and almost sense the tension in the rocks from this photo…
Our last stop in Turkey was to the Temple of Artemis, as massive Greek era temple that was later plundered to build the Roman temples. A lot going on in this photo. In the foreground are a few remaining stones of the Greek temple. In the background is an early Christian church built on the site and primarily with materials from the Roman temple that preceded it, and behind that, a 12th century fortress that was built long after the original city of Ephesus had to be abandoned.
Ephesus is truly a wonder, and I hope that I get back there within another 24 years, or if it is 24 years before I get there, that I get to have the opportunity to stand before the Turkish flags on the pier with my daughters and maybe even their families… So, once again, it was back in the bus, back to the boat, and now off to Mykonos!
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