Ephesus, John and Artemis’s Temple… A tour of ancient history

 

9/15/13

Mehartaba  (Hello)!

I woke up to the sounds of the deep blue Aegean sea and an equally blue sky.  After breakfast we drove to Ephesus.  Ephesus has too many superlatives to list them all but just to summarize:

1) The Temple of Artemis is one of the seven wonders of ancient world. The temple was built in the 10^th century BC for the Goddess of Fertility.  When Romans rebuilt the temple, it was four times bigger than the Parthenon.  Most of it is in British Museum in London now :( . Only one column stands at the sight (below).

 



The Temple of Artemis

2) After that there were Persians, Greeks, Romans  and Turks who made this port city one of the 4^th biggest cities in the Roman Empire (250, 000 people).  The city was the pride of the Roman, Greek and Ottoman Empires.

3) This was the home for many Greek and Roman Philosophers (I forgot the names already but I am sure you can Google them).  The city is too impressive to be described in words.  When I walked down the street paved with marbles from 2000 years ago, lined with shops, houses, temples and water fountains that were bustling with people, business and politics thousands of years ago,  I wondered about why and how it all turned to ruins.  People who were so wise and prosperous succumbed to natural and man made disasters?

A few fun facts:

The community toilets (see below) had running water (like flush toilet).



Flush Toilets

Marble and mosaic roads and promenades led to various Temples, Agoras and residential units . The shops lined the marble roads and everything is decorated with frescoes and mosaics.  The library had marble columns and a beautiful facade (picture below) and was the biggest library of the time.

The Library



Mosaic Pathways



Main Street to the Library

 

Running water was piped all through the city and houses had indoor plumbing (in the USA there was no indoor plumbing 100 years ago.  How did we forget the technology?)

The houses were three storied , all decorated with frescoes and paintings.

Multistory Homes

 The Stadium was the biggest at that time, housing 25.000 people. It still hosts concerts and protests.

The Stadium

Hidden messages by followers of Christ ( Da Vinci style)



Hidden Message for Christ

Nike

Lunch was at a local restaurant, serving traditional Turkish food made village style (photo below) using clay Tandoors and wood fired stoves.  After lunch we visited the church of St. John the Baptist.  Legend has it that after Jesus’s death,  John brought Mary here and she spent her time under the Muslim rulers.  She and John were well taken care of whereas all of the other apostles were murdered (see the irony here?).  John is buried here and there are masses held regularly.  It is a very important pilgrimage site for Christians.
 

Lunch

Temple of St. John

 

After all this history and heat , we came back to the lovely oceanfront hotel and swam in the pool overlooking the ocean.   Starting tomorrow, we will be cruising the ocean in a small boat.   I will write the blog but am not too sure about the Internet,  I will post  them when there is connection….Insha Allah