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

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