Euromos, Turkey

Our search for a campground in Bodrum proved futile, so we spent a second night at the beautiful little turn-out perched above the Aegean, east of Bodrum.  (Though we didn't get a good photo, the highway's retaining walls were decorated with inset amphoras; nice touch). Next morning, hoping to avoid Milas and Mugli, and lots of road construction, we did another "backroads of Turkey" expedition, crossing the fertile Menderes valley (from which we get "meandering"), passing by Lake Bafa--once an arm of the Aegean, now a huge brackish lake--en route to Didyma. This took us past Euromos, a Greek-later-Roman town dating from the 6th century BCE, the town and most of its buildings now well gone, but sporting one of the half dozen best-preserved temples in Asia Minor, its Temple of Zeus.

Temple of Zeus, Euromos; 200m off the road

Another view

Detail

In the necroplis--middle of a plowed field, mostly--a tomb

that reminded us of dolmens, aeons earlier, in northwestern

Europe

Later I wandered up the hill, through the olive groves--the

mountains here are covered with olive trees, more than I

have seen before--in search of Euromos' badly ruined

theatre; and eventually found it



The aisle staircase still in pretty good shape

All that's left of the stage building

  

Bodrum Museum Humor

International "castle without handrail" warning sign



When the Ottomans took over in 1523 or so, they walled-up

the castle's dungeon and Christian torture chamber--which

bore this cute inscription ("no God abides here")



When the museum staff took over, 400 years

later, they un-walled the dungeon and found

various real instruments of torture, several

"solitary" confinement areas, and not a few

bones; here's Vicki descending to where no

God abides

To wit...

Like many museum jobs, you just hang around, keeping an

eye on the visitors...

This one really cracked us up

But best was the "symposium of eastern Mediterranean

amphoras"

Someone had a lot of fun doing this...

What else are you going to do with the rest of the world's

largest collection of amphoras? 



Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology

There are many wrecks and their contents represented in this museum--Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and later--but it is the 14th century BC late Bronze Age wreck, the Uluburun, off the city of Kas, that must take pride of place, anywhere. Most matters of antiquity, especially deeper antiquity, are mostly stone assemblages and occasional grave goods. With the Uluburun shipwreck, there were 18,000 cataloged items, "every-day items," an archaeological treasure-trove that has caused a complete reconsideration of the Bronze Age and especially commerce and transportation at that time. We have seen older things than this--in France and the British Isles--but nothing we have seen compares with Uluburun. And, I should note, most of these archaeological recoveries were directed by the American, George Bass, of Pennsylvania U and Texas A&M, who is recognized at Bodrum and everywhere else as the "father" of marine archaeology.

Mycenaen glass beads and ingot, 14th century BC

Glass ingot

A Bronze Age ship's "eyes"



Entrance to the Uluburun hall; with the anti-"evil eye" one 
sees everywhere in Turkey

Enlarge and READ THIS



Bronze Age shaving kit, mirror and razor; where's the Burma Shave?

Life-size model of ship, cargo, and wreckage below

Metal and glass ingots

Cybele, Earth Mother (later replaced by Artemis, Diana, 
Mary)

Weapons, pottery from Uluburun

Ivory cosmetic boxes

There are only seven tin items known from the Bronze Age
--here are three of them; plus some ostrich eggs

Of ten scarabs found, this gold one bears the  

name of Nefertiti

More gold jewelry and other stuff

Amber; from the Baltic!!!

And, truly, best of all, a wax writing tablet--with reconstruction 

below--sort of a 1500BC etch-a-sketch; incredible...

Bodrum Castle

We have seen our share of castles. Most are ruins; many are hulks; some few are hulks with contrived collections; few contain anything beyond local significance; very, very few contain a collection that is world-class and of world-significance. Bodrum is in that last category. The castle itself was built by "Crusaders" in the early 1400s, after most castle-building in Europe was done. It fell to the Ottomans a century later, without a fight. It was maintained with a modest garrison, then abandoned and left to itself for centuries. In 1915, the French battleship Duplex shelled it briefly. Then, in the 1960s, it came to be used to store the incredible archaeological finds coming out of Turkish waters with the advent of scuba-diving and underwater archaeology. In addition to its remarkable state, its gardens and many displays and exhibits of interest, it now houses the Bodrum Museum of Nautical Archaeology, the largest and most impressive of its kind. I'll have to do a separate post on the museum.

Each of the five "Crusading" nations built one of Bodrum's

tall towers

Red wine and beef; the castle and grounds

are littered with items such as this

Sacrifical altar

Ramp leading into inner castle

We think of container ships as something new, but all the

ancient maritime trade in the Mediterranean, going back
3,500 years, or more, carried standardized containers--
amphora jars--in which were stored grains, wine, olive oil,
precious materials; metals and unworked glass came in
standardized ingots; this is a smidge of Bodrum's
collection of amphora jars, the world's largest

Beautiful amphora mosaic



The castle courtyards and grounds are a beautiful

Mediterranean garden with many unusual species; and

peacocks roaming around

Vicki under the mulberry tree



Sculpture gardens

Inscription gardens

Ship anchor gardens (pre-Iron Age!)

Another reason to like Ataturk: he

understood Turkey's past and valued its

museums

Bodrum

Bodrum was one of the first Turkish coastal cities to go touristic, some years back, but the old town is still quite picturesque and agreeable. We parked on a back street, near the Mausoleum, then walked down to the marina, and nearly its length, to the castle, stopping for lunch at the first McDonald's we have seen in weeks.

Bodrum castle in the distance



Part of the old harbor marina; apparently Bodrum is quite the place to park 
your yacht

Fish market/squid district

So we're walking along the marina by where it adjoins a nice park, and observe 
these street vendors selling the obscene little honey-saturated doughnut holes 
we loved at the Spice Market in Istanbul

And while I am taking pictures of the line to get at them, the proprietess spots us 
and brings tourist Vicki (now an object of pity and sympathy with her arm in a 
sling) not one but two dishes of the good stuff; yum; note flag and banner of

Ataturk; flags were at half-mast to honor the police killed and injured in the 
terrorist incident in Istanbul

McDonald's wants you to know that 98% of its stuff in Turkey is locally-sourced; 
and that McDonald's is very Turkish

Along this part of the marina, outside the castle, they use ancients stones and blocks 
to demarcate the various vendors' stalls; probably all from the Mausoleum...

The "father of history," Herodotus, was a Halicarnassian

Now it's the Aegean that is remarkably clear and so interestingly colored

Bodrum's biggest draw, according to Lonely Planet, is the Club Hallikarnos, 
which can accommodate 5,000; we missed it, so I guess we can't really say 
we went to Bodrum