How BIG is the WORLD?: 4/2015 - SELÇUK & EPHESUS,

Sunday, July 26, 2015

4/2015 - SELÇUK & EPHESUS,

Tourist Town

30 May – 1 June 2015

SELÇUK & EPHESUS, TURKEY

AEGEAN COAST

Travelling from Bergama and transiting through the large city of Izmir, we arrived in Selçuk early afternoon with plans to stay one night. Although Selçuk does have its own share of ruins, we’re here to visit the famous Ephesus in the morning. Previously, rumours of cruise ship tourists crowding the site tempted me to skip the site altogether but after I found a website listing port dates of cruising ships and Kuşadasi (nearest port) wasn’t listed for 1^st June, I’m happy to brave it. Our plan is to arrive very early on site which should leave us enough time to get a 4pm train the same day.

Selçuk itself has the mighty Ayasuluk Fortress overlooking the city and dating from Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods. There is also the Basilica of St John which has suffered attacks and earthquakes over the centuries to be mostly ruins now. It’s said St John visited Ephesus twice – once with the Virgin Mary, after Christ’s death and again to write his gospel here in AD 95, inspiring Byzantine Emperor Justinian to build the Basilica. St Paul also lived here in the AD 60s.

A lovely Eros sculpture

Mighty Ephesus

The museum here is home to many of the artefacts recovered from excavations at Ephesus with ancient statuary including this lovely Eros, along with coins, jewellery, funerary objects and a frieze from the Temple of Hadrian.

Ephesus was the Roman capital of Asia Minor and in the 10thCentury BC was situated on the coastline of the Aegean Sea. Home to over a ¼ million inhabitants in its prime and a maritime crossroads of the Greco Roman world, it was also home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - the nearby Temple of Artemis, which at its greatest, had 127 columns dedicated to the fertility goddess! Alas today, only one reconstructed column in an empty field is all that is left of what attracted pilgrims in their thousands over its 1000 year existence. With 80% of the city still to be uncovered, excavations are continuing.

Revealed structures including a Great Theatre that would have held up to 25,000 spectators, a 5000 seat Odeon, library, even latrines and a brothel. The 7m high Domitian Gate separated the inhabitants with the general public entered through the lower section and religious folk entered through the higher section.

Wealthy inhabitants’ terraced houses are also being uncovered and on display – constructed from hewn marble, and decorated with frescoes and lovely mosaics they evidenced a very civilised Ephesian lifestyle.

I was also impressed to learn that Ephesus was one of the few Roman cities of the time able to afford public lighting with evidence showing the Arcadiane or Harbour Road was lit and the city was landscaped with gardens and fountains.

Two of the Gods impressed me: Heracles who is an Ephesus native has been sculpted wearing a lion’s hide to attest to his awesome strength and I have to say he is looking pretty good! Originally driven mad by Hera, the wife of Zeus (his father), Heracles (born mortal) slew his own children (yes, that was a bit naughty of him) and was ordered to complete 12 tasks to redeem himself.

One task to achieve immortality was to kill the Nemean lion with an impenetrable hide so Heracles he had to enter its den & strangle it. What a man! My new hero!

And a relief of the Winged Goddess Nike or Victory or Victoria who has been carved as gracefully soaring away to great heights.

The site itself is a very well maintained and very complete roman city and I was suitably impressed. Crowds did bottle neck at the famous Curates Way but only to be expected with the excavated architecture and attractions there, and there are still wide spaces to wander quietly, away from the happy snappers.

After starting at 9am, we managed to get around and tour the whole site by 1pm, leaving us plenty of time to pick up our packs and get to the station for a leisurely trip up to Denizli on our way into Western Anatolia to Pamukkale.