Thursday, November 4, 2010

Antalya Archaeological Museum

From Aspendos we drove straight in to Antalya, a sprawling city of a million, and found our way to our main goal, its archaeological museum. The museum was one of the best we have seen, for a variety of reasons, and so I will give it two posts.
The Lycian sarcophogus is their trademark, but there is much more
















It has a beautiful setting just west of the sehir merkezi and a beautiful campus
















Bronze age burial practice around here (for some): in a big amphora jar

















I always tell her to stand next to something "for scale," then 
try to think of some outrageous caption...






















Perfume or oil jar, 5th century BCE




















Baby bottle, for feeding (seriously)















Roman legionnaire's canteen





















One of the things we really liked was an entire section--a big room--devoted to 
the various major digs and the archaeologists behind them

















Another was the overall educational emphasis of the place; I think I learned more 
at this museum--not merely about the collection, but about back-story practices and
technologies (where marble comes from, how it is mined, how it is moved, various 
types of sculpture, tools used by ancient sculptors, and so on)--than in any other I 
have seen; period; here's an entire large room devoted to pottery and especially the 
potter's wheel; and not dumbed-down to 9 year-olds, either






















One of the great paleolithic finds in the world is Karain Cave, not far from 
Antalya--continuously inhabited for 25,000 years, first by neandethals, then 
homo sapiens, everything from low paleolithic to age of metals; the good 
stuff is in the museum here



















Ditto
















Cute little solid gold cupid earring; its mate
is still out there in the ground somewhere...




















4th century BCE relief
























Monday, November 1, 2010

Perge

We drove on from Aspendos to Perge, intending to do just a drive-by of that site, and heading on up into the mountains again to see Termessos, yet another ancient city site. But photographs of Termessos in a book at the shop at Perge, the distance out of the way, and the rough ground surrounding the ruins at Termessos, all convinced us to stay at Perge, do its stadium and associated sites outside the ticketed area, and to enjoy another day of not doing much. After all, the museum in Antalya is closed on Mondays.
The colonnades at Perge















Perge's pretty much intact stadium, from the closed end of
the horseshoe
















Decorative piece on the ground...one of hundreds














South of the stadium, the best-ordered spare parts park I
have yet seen
















View from the open end














Here, again, the seats were built atop enormous vaults; the
vaults on the right remain, although their seats have been
toppled, presumably by earthquake
















Detail of vault and toppled seats















Interior of the same vault; well, I find this
stuff pretty interesting...




















Across the road, and closed to the public (for
"conservation"), the amphitheatre
















Later in the afternoon, I did something I have not done
since childhood, namely, crack open a cocoanut, drain (and
retain) the milk, and remove the meat; all this for a chicken
yellow curry Vicki was fixing; try explaining "shredded
cocoanut" to the guy in the Turkish produce department
sometime...


















Anyhow, we were all set to spend the night by the stadium
at Perge, when, right in the middle of fixing the curry, the
night watchman approached and told us "problem" and we
must leave; which we did, heading back in the darkness to
Aspendos; oh well...










Aspendos

Aspendos is a few miles down the road and a bit inland...the usual Greco/Roman city ruins, most in a more ruinous state. But it has one thing not ruined: its theatre, which is everywhere recognized as the most complete and best preserved instance of a Roman theatre anywhere.

It is a two camel site; note muzzles















Interestingly, these camels were capped at
both ends




















From the outside, the theatre looks like an ordinary 2,000
year-old 5-story building (built during reign of Marcus
Aurelius)

















Inside, you need a really big lens; ancient theatres are like
this, steep, nearly surrounding the stage, no seat more than
perhaps 150 feet from the action; no need to burn a 50 amp
fuse here

















Vicki center stage
















From where I was in the sky-boxes















In the high arcade...popcorn, peanuts, hot dogs, cold beer...















Sky-boxes
















View from proscenium














Proscenium, the part that is best preserved at Aspendos














Deus ex machina?















View from the hill above















Hill-top ruins














Countryside around Aspendos

























































The parking fee at Aspendos was 8YTL ($5), which entitled us, we thought, to an overnight stay. It was a very quiet night. But the internet connection was good.

Side Now


Although there are conventional European campgrounds in
Turkey, most of the time what you get is a very small set of
minimally-equipped spots in the pansiyon's parking lot, as
here; but it was just fine, especially the location; as you can
see, we've just done the wash...



















Of course, there may be chickens, turkeys, ducks, and
other animals running around

















In the middle of an olive grove















But it's easy on the eyes, and everything still in bloom





Main commercial street in old-town; no stoa

















The artifacts and commerce here are so
intermingled, it's hard to know where the
cafe ends and the temple begins






















"Side" means pomegranate, so we had a cup of the juice;
too bad "Side" doesn't mean "extra dry Bombay Sapphire
martini with one large olive, patted dry" 

















View back towards new town, beaches, development















Actually, Turkey and Norway have much in
common, at least in terms of taxing booze...




















Guess the nationality of most tourists here

Side Then

Side is not particularly well preserved, except the amphitheatre, but all the fragments laying around, everywhere, give a pretty good indication of the lay-out and extent of the place, which was situated on a little peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean.

Its two main streets were double-collonaded, the colonnades
roofed to provide stoa, that is, covered arcades in which
there were scores of shops...

















The agora (marketplace), now looking like another spare
parts yard; I surmise the standing columns are all renovated
















Ditto; the Turks seem to resurrect just enough to give you
a proper glimpse

















The baths
















Vicki at the Temples of Apollo and Athena
















Temple of Apollo (reconstruction)
















Tumbled-down Temple of Apollo (earthquakes are not good
for temples or other buildings)
















Back at the theatre: those upper 29 rows
rested on very heavy-duty vaulting, as here




















Entrance to the old town, a tight squeeze for
vehicles like ours




















Colonnades again















The Nymphaneum (fountain) just outside the big gate