After Priene we drove on, intent on nothing but finding that nice campground in Selcuk we had heard of, near Ephesus, and taking several days off. We are tired travelers, and Vicki's arm needs rest. But the cultural and historical sites in Turkey are without end, and, not far from Selcuk, without even noticing the brown cultural/heritage signage, we passed another ruined city, this time Magnesia. It was in none of our guidebooks. We had to stop for just a few pix outside the fence. Magnesia was settled by Greeks from Thessaly, Leukippos and his followers, the Magnetes (could be a rock band; "and now, direct from their home town in Thessaly, and following a succesful tour of Asia Minor, please welcome Leukippos and the Magnetes..."), in the 5th century BCE. It became a religious center under the Byzantines, then declined. Aegean and Mediterranean Turkey are just littered with such places. I wonder whether anyone has seen them all.
...recounts the retirement travels of Mark and Vicki Sherouse since 2008...in Asia and the Pacific, New Zealand, Europe, South America, and Africa, as well as the US and Canada. Our website, with much practical information, is: https://sites.google.com/site/theroadgoeseveron/.Contact us at mark.sherouse@gmail.com or vsherouse@gmail.com.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Priene
It was at Priene, another Ionian League city, that Vicki articulated her "great houses" theory of touring classical ruins. In the UK of GB, a year ago, we toured dozens of the great houses. (We had National Trust and English Heritage passes). Yes, they all have certain similarities: big houses, great halls, art work, parks, grounds, gardens, follies. Taking a little more time with them, as we did, we began to see more of the historical/cultural/political/regional/other nuances. They are all quite different and quite interesting, despite the superficial similarities. (There is also a similar approach to touring cathedrals...). Anyhow, we have now attained that state where, despite the same old stones, theatres, stadia, agora, baths, nymphanea, etc., we are beginning to see each of these ruins as quite distinct and different. Of course they can't have the richness that great houses have with all their furniture, decorative arts, landscaping, recent history, familiarity, etc. (Museums can supply some of this for the ancients). But I digress.
Priene was not a coastal city but was rather well up the Menderes Valley, perched on a hilltop at the foot of Mt. Mykales' great face. As an Ionian League city, it could trace its origins to the Greek colonists who settled many of these places, sometime around 1,000 BCE. For whatever reasons, the Romans were never attracted to Priene; its influence waned, and, by Byzantine times, it was abandoned. And so it remains one of the very best examples of a purely Greek/Hellenistic city. And it is relatively well preserved.
Priene was not a coastal city but was rather well up the Menderes Valley, perched on a hilltop at the foot of Mt. Mykales' great face. As an Ionian League city, it could trace its origins to the Greek colonists who settled many of these places, sometime around 1,000 BCE. For whatever reasons, the Romans were never attracted to Priene; its influence waned, and, by Byzantine times, it was abandoned. And so it remains one of the very best examples of a purely Greek/Hellenistic city. And it is relatively well preserved.
Here's what archaeologists think it looked like, in its hey-day
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Columns of Priene's Temple of Athena, 4th century BCE
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Column-building is quite elementary, you see; you just
match "A" to "A" and "B" to "B" and then proceed on up
until finished
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Menderes Valley from Priene
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"Greek to me" department
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Main Street; agora
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Every now and then, you see a really nice day-pack-sized
fragment in a conspicuous place; bait for would-be
smugglers we think...
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Priene's Greek theatre
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VIP seating and the central altar; theatre for the Greeks was
far more a religious experience than entertainment, hence,
the altar, for sacrifices
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Me on the altar; Dionysus knows I am one of his best
customers
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Priene's Temple to Egyptian Gods
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Vicki leaving via the city's main gate
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Miletus
A few more miles up the road is the former coastal city of Miletus--the whole valley now silted up but wonderfully fertile--the major port of the Ionian League. Miletus thrived until taken by the Persians in the 6th century BCE and was rebuilt by the Greeks after Alexander and then by the Romans. Most of the remaining ruins are Roman in style and origin. It was the home of the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales. Just FYI.
Set on the hill overlooking the place is its best-preserved feature, its theatre
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Interior view, with the Byzantine citadel rising in the background
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Nosebleed view
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Goodyear blimp view
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The two axes, I believe, were a symbol of Carian resistance
to the Romans
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The one nice frieze, found by Vicki, apparently over-looked by the British Museum;
apparently they had already reached their loot-limit for that season |
Claw-footed bleachers
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The south agora and Faustina's Baths (Marcus Aurelius' wife), said to be the
model for Turkish baths |
The Nymphaneum
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Me on the Sacred Way, north agora
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The Harbor Monument
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Sunset at Miletus
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Leaving, the next morning; the nice staff at the site had permitted us to over-night
in the parking lot; note: much of the area is marshy, and there are mosquitoes... |
Monday, November 15, 2010
Temple of Apollo, Didyma
Our next stop, on what turned out to be a three-site day, was the Temple of Apollo, in the coastal city of Didyma. Didyma had been an important site from the sixth century BCE, with an oracle second only to the one at Delphi. Didyma was second-fiddle in another way, too. Originally planned to have 122 columns, it was to be the largest temple of the ancient world. But Ephesus, up the road, built its Temple of Artemis with 127 columns, and thus made the Seven Wonders of the World list. Didyma didn't. Nonetheless, a couple millennia later, Didyma's temple ruins are the more impressive. See a later post on the Temple of Artemis, tentatively entitled "The bigger they are, the harder they fall."
Although only three of the columns still stand, including the one in the
foreground that was never completed, you really can get a sense of the size of the thing, absolutely colossal |
Colossal Medusa, representations of which supposedly scared off the evil spirits
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Another view
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Toppled columns; earthquakes did most of the damage
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Closer-up, including some insight as to how these puppies
were put together
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The two remaining, finished columns
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Carving at base
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View from within the sanctum sanctorum
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Nice griffins all around
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Sacred spring; kind of a dry hole now, but at least there was no trash at the bottom
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Construction markings are all around (although this one probably says "3 slices
pepperoni, 2 sausage and mushroom, and 3 all the way (hold the anchovies)" |
You can see the marks where the flutes were to begin...
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Sunday, November 14, 2010
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
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Another view
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Detail
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In the necroplis--middle of a plowed field, mostly--a tomb
that reminded us of dolmens, aeons earlier, in northwestern
Europe
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The aisle staircase still in pretty good shape
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All that's left of the stage building
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