Pergamum

Pergamum has the usual Hellenistic/Roman pedigree--settled by Aeolians in the 8th century BCE--except that it was a hilltop city, not a port city. The city was quite spread out, including the hilltop main center, the Red Hall and associated structures below it, and the Asclepion on a hillside across the valley. The Asclepion was a sort of Mayo Clinic of later antiquity. The great ancient physician Galen taught and healed there. After touring the Bergama Museum, we drove up to the Asclepion, then decided we were not interested--Vicki was not enthused about drinking from the sacred spring, even using the SteriPen--so we drove back down, through the city, and up to the telepherique that goes to the top of Pergamum. (Ordinary cars can drive, but anything over 2.7m high, including us, is verboten.)

The museum was OK; actually the first one we have seen where the ethnoghraphic 
stuff was better than the archaeological stuff

The Pergamum telepherique--nicest, most up-to-date I have ridden, period; and I 
have ridden a few in the past year or so

The most famous parts of Pergamum are its theatre and its Trajan Temple, above; 
1st century

Trajan Temple complex, different view

Ditto



To me, there was at least one other fascinating aspect of 
Pergamum, namely, how they got the water up there for

100,000+ residents and their baths--240,000 pieces of terra 
cotta pipe spanned 45k to a mountain-top spring, a 
kilometer or more of lead pipe going the last distance from 
the valley, all employing siphon technique; the ditch 
pictured is where the pipes entered the city, at its arsenal



Pergamum's cliff-hanging Greek theatre, from the vicinity of the Asclepion, 
across the valley

Function follows form; the hillside did not permit the usual 180+ degree theatre 
form, so the builders made it much steeper and higher; climbing the staircases 
one almost wants to be belayed...

Looking down on the Altar of Zeus, considered the most magnificent altar of 
antiquity; alas, it was excavated by Germans, who took it all, including the great 
friezes, back to Berlin

And that's it, at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, which was closed when we were 
there in 2009

Temple of Dionysus, right next to the theatre stage; the stage building was timber, 
fitted into the square supports in a previous picture, and thus temporary, so it 
would not block view of the temple during non-festival times

So much for the upper city; at this point I began walking down (Vicki stayed in the 
camper this day), first to the middle city, and then through the lower city; this is a

nearly intact mosaic, found only a decade or so ago, in one of the large peristyle 
residences in the middle city; the so-called "Building Z"

Sanctuary of Demeter

Gymnasium and environs, middle city

At length--all this took 3 hours or so-- I reached the bottom, 
ran out of path, but fortunately got back on the road, thanks to

this hole cut in the barbed-wire fencing that encloses the whole 
site