Ephesus, Turkey

A week and a half ago I just got back from my trip to Italy and Turkey - wonderful trip but it also feels good to be back. I may put up some more posts about the trip in the coming days/weeks.

As someone who is not very well versed in world history, one of the really interesting things about Turkey for me was how much history it spans, both in terms of years and number of empires. The southeastern part of Turkey has the Tigris and the Euphrates running through it, and was once part of Mesopotamia known as the cradle of civilization and the part of the world where agriculture was born more than 10,000 years ago. Parts of Turkey later became part of the Greek Empire and then the Roman Empire. The ancient Greek city of Byzantium was renamed by the Roman emperor Constantine I to Constantinople and played an important part in the history of the Christian religion. Constantinople remained Christian for about one thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks and became the capital of the muslim Ottoman Empire as Istanbul. The Ottoman Empire then collapsed and become Turkey after World War I.

One of the highlights of the trip was the ruined city of Ephesus, an ancient Greek city built in the 10th century B.C. What's left of Ephesus (now known as Efes in Turkish) is on a hilltop outside the town of Selçuk near the Aegean coast. Turkey is very hot in July, and the sun beating down at this site was intensified by all of the marble that it could reflect off of. I ended up getting burnt even though I'd put on sunscreen that morning.

One some of the columns and structures you can
still make out inscriptions in Ancient Greek.

Most of the city has now crumbled to ruin, but there are a few places of interest that are still standing or have been reconstructed. One of these is the Library of Celsus, which was destroyed by earthquakes, but whose facade was re-erected in the 1970s.

This view looking up at the entrance of the Library of Celsus
shows some of the intricate stonework.

The Library of Celsus was a Roman building that was completed in 135 AD to honor Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, the Roman senator. It housed 12,000 scrolls and there was a mausoleum for Celsus underneath. The front of the facade also contains statues with Greek labels underneath - I could recognize enough greek letters to make out "EPISTEME", the personification of knowledge.

Another of the major sites at Ephesus was the amphitheater. Though much of it has been reconstructed and may not be original, this amphitheater is the largest in Anatolia. It was originally built in the 3rd century B.C. during the Hellenistic Period, but then enlarged during the Roman period.

Amphitheaters like this one were used for events like plays as well as gladiator fights.

Of course one of the things that set Ancient Rome apart from other civilizations were the aqueducts and the plumbing, so no Roman city would be complete without its public bathrooms -

Public toilets in Ephesus

Away from the rest of the ruins of Ephesus, closer to the outskirts of Selçuk, is the ruins of the Temple of Artemis, which was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was built in the Bronze Age and was destroyed and rebuilt three times before its final destruction in 401. Almost nothing is left of it now, and when I visited the area seemed to be a little flooded and now looks marshy.

The Temple of Artemis: once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world,
now home to storks. as well as geese and ducks.

Those who study biblical history also know Ephesus as one of the seven churches of Asia and the place where John was said to have written his gospel - I did visit the basilica of St. John as well but that will probably be saved for another post.