Ephesus

Efes

It's not just a beer.

On our way to the north entrance we drove by the revealed entrance gates of the northern wall.  Alexander rode through those gates!

A little history.   It's been there a long time, folks, and there is a lot of history.

Ephesus dates from the Neolithic period and was a prominent city throughout history beginning in the Bronze age.

1888 representation of the ancient city. Note the nearness of the
Aegean.

The Goths destroyed it in 263 CE. Constantine rebuilt it and it remains the most important city
until earthquakes hit in 614.  The harbor had silted in and so Ephesus began to lose its commercial importance.  The Arabs sacked it in 654, 700 and 716.  When the Seljuk Turks sacked Ephesus in 1090, it was a small village.  However, the Byzantines took it back and controlled it from 1097 - 1308.

Ephesus was completely abandoned by the 15th century.   Ayasuluğ was the port that replaced the silted harbor of Efes and brought the area back to some commercial strength in the 14th Century. Nearby Ayasuluğ was renamed Selçuk in 1914.

Ephesus lay in ruins for centuries.  

 Series of earthquakes had basically knocked it down so many times that the people finally gave up and left.  Otto Benndorf, who occupied the Chair of Classical Archeology at the University of Vienna made a formal proposal to excavate at Ephesus in 1893.  He was building on the work of a British railroad engineer John Turtle Wood, who carried out a number of archeological digs in 1863 in his search for the famed Artemision, or Temple of Artemis. Under the auspices of the British Museum, Wood pursued his goal of locating the legendary temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Finally, on New Year’s Day in 1869 his goal was reached.  However, the serious disrepair of all of the structures prevented Wood from finding any sponsors for the work.

These were the teachings of our wonderful guide.  We picked him up inside the north entrance.  Our hotel host said, "pick any of the older guides who speak English; they know something."  We hired him for what was to be a 90-minute tour.  Our questions, our obvious interest in the place and our enthusiasm for him turned it into a 150-minute tour.

panoramic shot around the market square

our guide demonstrates the subscriptions toilets

market square

mosaic pavements in from of stalls

Bunch ' rocks and stones, right?  Not to me.  And with a guide your eyes are directed to things you might otherwise walk right by.

Only 15% of the ruins have been uncovered.   The rest will probably never be uncovered.  The kind of philanthropy and subscriptions necessary to do all of the work is beyond the capacity of the companies and governments that usually underwrite such things.  So the 85% will continue to lie under the soil or on the large open spaces where the stones sit.

detail of carved marble

But the work does continue in small amounts and teams of archeologists are in and out.  With some imagination and with the guide to direct our eyes we saw much. I could add a little bit of revery to picture what life might have been like in this city.


Some highlights: 

• there was a tunnel from the library of Celsus to the brothel.  "honey, I'm off to the library" might have had an entirely different meaning. 
• you can still see the terracotta pipes that delivered fresh water from the springs and the aqueduct to the city.
• You can still see parts of the aqueduct.
• The water flowed in part to the "public toilets" which were anything but public.  Reportedly, you had to pay and one of the carved seats was reserved for you.

acres of marble waiting to be put back into the jigsaw puzzle

As the sun was heading down, these two men were sitting at the front of what was once the stage of the amphitheatre.  One of them started chanting the prayers marking the time for prayer.

St. Paul preached here

The theatre held 40,000 people.  The benches around the bottom platform were for the wealthy and the rest of the citizenry got the higher seats.

St. Paul lived here for two years and wrote his first letter to the city of Corinth from here.  He was competing with a city full of many gods and many sects. He most likely was viewed as just another crank peddling yet another god.  Even a god who had died.

He was finally forced out when the artisans making their votary items and statues began to fear that his preaching would drive them out of business.  They drove him out instead. 

At the end of Ramadan, these young men sang Muslim prayers

The library is probably the most iconic building in Ephesus.  It dates from the second century and was built to be both a library (12,000 scrolls) and a mausoleum for the governor Julius Celsus.

detail from the wall of the Celsus Library

The immensity of the amphitheater

The boundary between the commercial and the governmental

Sean  is suspended between the columns that mark the boundary of the civic/governmental part of the city and the commercial part.  Note the carvings of Hercules holding the lion pelt that was his emblem.  In the direction he was looking the houses and the first floor stalls of merchants start.

 Baths

Cooper did well with each parent or grandparent unit taking some time with him. 

apothecary symbol

  










Maryem Ana Evi.

water pipes dot the soil and the walls

It was getting late in the afternoon so we headed toward the Maryem Ana Evi.  The "House of the Virgin Mary" is said to be the place where the Mother of Jesus spent her last days.  She was brought there by St. John.  It is said that a 19th Century bedridden German nun, who had never been to Turkey, in a vision described with total accuracy the site and its modest stone house.  This is a site venerated by Roman Catholics and Muslims and a pilgrimage destination.  Underneath the house there flows a spring and people collect water from the faucets installed there.  (I do not think that they are original faucets.)  It was a peaceful place despite the hoards of faithful.  In the small chapel sat a Franciscan monk.  While appearing to be reading and meditating, what he really was doing was discretely clearing his throat anytime anyone broke the requested silence of the chapel.

There is sometimes a long space between "tradition" and orthodoxy.  The Mary House still has meaning for a lot of people.

Our host picked us up as scheduled and we spent a nice evening resting and feasting.