Turkish Delight - A fine place for a long sleep

After the Atemission  we were ready for a nap  so where better to visit than the cave of the Seven Sleepers!

This is close to both Ephesus and the Temple to Artemis but is the focus of Christian mysteries. The seven sleepers are 7 Christian  men who were said to have been walled up in a natural grotto to save them from persecution.




Safe in their cave they fell asleep only to wake 200 years later around 435CE. Walking down into Ephesus they were amazed by the number of churches and the ability for them to worship safely. Eventually they died natural deaths and were buried in the cave where they had slept.

Obviously the site of such a miracle became a place of pilgrimage and a church and mausoleum added later.

Many others also wanted to be buried on such a sacred site ( may be in hope of waking up themselves in the future) and there are many other grave slots above the original grotto. This was a major place of pilgrimage up to the 15CE but nowadays it doesn't seem much visited. There were just a handful of other visitors despite the location of a busy tourist trap just below on the road.


These legends of people falling asleep  only to wake  and find that many years have passed are found worldwide. Indeed  King Arthur is said to slumber under Britain awaiting the time when  he will waken and save the country in its time of need.

Possibly the most interesting thing about this site was the discovery of a series of clay lamps found in the grotto. Many were decorated with Christian themes but many other bore pagan images such as  the head of the  Attis  ( Consort of Cybele and a god of death and resurrection, born of a virgin mother....sound familiar?).  

Turkish Delight - one of the 7 wonders of the world. The Artemision

As you may have gathered from the previous instalment, Ephesus was far from my favourite site this trip.

However leaving Ephesus we stopped at the Artemision. This temple, dedicated to Artemis, was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It was also much less busy, Most of the cruises don't seem to bother with it. They have no idea what they are missing!

 The site is right on the outskirts of Selcuk and easily accessible. I wasn't complaining about the lack of crowds though!

The site is mostly rubble now but there are tantalising hints of what it must once have been like. This model in the Selcuk museum gives an idea of the sheer scale of the place. 

The original temple here dates back to the Bronze age and was destroyed by flood.

The temple had a tempestuous life, destroyed by arson. rebuilt, destroyed again....

Like many of the sites in Turkey, the columns seem to have been randomly reconstructed with odds and ends of masonry. I suppose this travesty does give an idea of the height of the original column but still.....

Much of the site slumbers buried under the scrub grassland, deserted apart from a few tortoises exploring the boulder strewn ground. 

The heart of the temple is now quite swampy so it looks a lot greener.

This gives an indication of the location of the columns.

Most of the contents or the temple are now in the British Museum but the local one in Selcuk has the two main temple statues. This one is known as the beautiful one and it is not misnamed.

The quality of the carving is breathtaking and the whole piece just radiates beauty and serenity. Even better, it is not fenced off so you can get close enough to appreciate the quality of the workmanship that went into this statue.

 

A close up of the detail down the side panels of the skirt - bees yes but the Tudor Rose? Some symbols recur in the most unlikely places....

The Ephesus Artemis is distinctly different from the Greek goddess and her cult shares more similarities with that of Cybele, the mother goddess of the region.

  

Turkish Delight - Ephesus

If you've seen the pictures of Somerset on the news you'll understand why we didn't venture out today. I'm longing for some heat and sun after the days of torrential rain so got out the pictures of Turkey again to remind myself that there are parts of the world that are sunny and hot.

So this is Ephesus  - high on the "must visit" list of every visitor to Turkey and jam packed with bored cruise liner passengers who quite clearly would have been happier to stay on board their floating hotels judging by snippets of overheard conversation.

In any event it was busy - very very very busy. This should give you an idea. This is the main street. Fortunately the cruise liner parties started at the top and headed straight down to the bottom and back on to the waiting coaches. This did mean that the side streets were much less crowded and almost pleasant.







Trying to photograph Ephesus was hard - I'd get a shot lined up and in the time it took to click the shutter someone would have inevitably walked in front of the lens. So I bought a guidebook for some decent pictures. I did get a few though that I quite liked.

This is Nike - the winged Goddess of Victory. Part of the drape of her robe is the famous "swoosh" of the training shoe brand.

The Library - there was said to be a tunnel linking the library with the local brothel across the street. This was to allow the town worthies to hide their true destination from their wives....

 They did have some very grand public lavatories - obviously it was a communal event!

Much less crowded were the terraced houses. These are  a fairly recent excavation and are covered with a huge protective structure. They are also the site of the biggest jigsaw puzzle in the world as a team try and replace the beautiful marble cladding on the hall walls.

Entry does cost extra but it was well worth it. The preservation of the mosaics and wall frescoes is second to none.

and a close up shot.

Here as elsewhere Ephesus has been "reconstructed" by the frankly bizarre habit of just stacking random bits of stonework on top of each other. Here is a fairly typical example - I guess it gives the impression of a third dimension but I'd really rather they didn't!

More random stacking.

Looking up certainly bore fruit at times but I'm not sure that this bull actually belongs where he's been put.









You'd almost think we had the place to ourselves looking at this picture!

and lastly the amphitheatre - I managed to avoid most of the crowds but not the crane. I may need to develop some Photoshop skills and get rid of that :-)






So a whistle stop tour of Ephesus - the crowds did rather spoil it for me and it was probably my least favourite ancient Turkish city. 

Turkish Delight - A city to launch a thousand ships

Ever since I read the tales of this city it is a place I have longed to visit. As a child I never thought I'd ever have the opportunity so whilst in Turkey this was the must see and personally the highlight of the whole trip.

Where then? Well if the post title hasn't given it away then this will...

 Yes - unmistakably Troy. This (rather dreadful) horse was put up to give the visitors something to photograph... You can if you want to climb up inside and stick your head out of the body. We didn't bother but it took a while to be able to get a clear shot like this.

 With some high anticipation I was half expecting the site itself to be a bit of an anticlimax but it was far from that.

True, the remains are less spectacular than some of the sites but given the quality of the "reconstruction" we saw elsewhere this was no bad thing.

The site is huge. And overgrown. But that didn't matter.

We saw red squirrels playing in the trees and tiny tortoises bathing in the hot sun.

 
Some areas are much tidier - a testament to the destructive archaeology of some of the earliest excavators who were seeking the legendary treasures of Troy.





Troy was indeed fabulously wealthy thanks to it's control of the shipping in the Aegean. If the winds were unfavourable as they often were, ships would have to remain in  port at Troy until they were able to proceed - sometimes months. This added to the wealth of the inhabitants.

Troy is actually multiple cities, in fact 9 of them, all piled on top of each other and the archaeology is confusing. Even the pros have to label each layer!

How anyone could say that there is nothing to photograph beats me  - this is the ramp into the pre homeric Troy 2.

and of course the inevitable amphitheatre! (Roman, Troy IX)

Turkish Delight - Istanbul

I'm back - this is rather later than I'd planned but I've just killed another laptop so I've been waiting for a replacement keyboard from Amazon ( what would we do without them).

Thousands of photos later, here are a few of the selected highlights from the last couple of weeks. Firstly Istanbul. Well where to begin? A huge vibrant city and a mix of the old and new. We didn't have time to fully explore the old city; never  mind the new.

So just  a few pictures then:

Firstly the  bronze Serpent pillar dedicated to Apollo from the Hippodrome. This is in the heart of the old city by the famous Blue Mosque. There are three serpents twisted together and it is known to be at least 2500 years old. The heads have sadly been removed but.....

......we found one in the museum! Terrible picture. I'm sorry but the glass was very reflective. At least you can't see much of me.

More from the museum. We spent hours in there and I could have filled the memory card here alone. This is a relief of Psyche. Love the "Tudor" style roses. This was a motif that cropped up time and again all over Turkey.

This is the Alexander Sarcophagus. Decorated with scenes depicting  Alexander the Great, the quality and preservation of this was incredible. It is virtually undamaged despite dating to 4BCE and traces of the original painted decoration are still evident.


The Istanbul museum holds many treasures including reliefs from the gates of Babylon themselves. Truly amazing.

However if I was to post all the pictures that are worth showing, this would be the longest blog post in history so moving on....

Under the streets of Istanbul are giant water cisterns. Despite the cathedral like appearance and its name, the Basilica Cistern its sole function is a reservoir for water ( and a fish pool). Built in the 6CE it was forgotten, rediscovered and then restored.

Hidden in the darkness are some real oddities including this head of Medusa. No I haven't got the picture upside down...

The next pillar has a further head of Medusa but at a 45degree angle. Obviously reused from the past there is no history of their original location.

You may recognise the location from the Bond film "From Russia with Love".

A couple now from the Topkapi Palace, the home of the Ottoman emperors. This was heavingly busy due to the number of cruise ships in the city but inside the harem it was much quieter ( costs extra to visit!

The whole palace was quite breathtaking with the quality of decor  - here is a small sample.

On now to the fabled Blue Mosque. Shoes off here and headscarf on. Far too big a space to photograph well so here is a snippet.

Finally for Istanbul was the Hagia Sophia, firstly a cathedral ( around 300CE ) then a mosque and now a secular museum it is also extremely popular with the cruise passengers.





Full of Byzantine Christian mosaics and paintings mixed with some surprisingly secular carvings and of course the ubiquitous  Turkish gold and blue this was an undoubted highlight of the city.