Ephesus, Turkey Nov 11

After a poor night's sleep, we hopped on buses in the port city of Kusadasi (literally "Bird Island", the island shown here, once a protective fort for the harbor but now a disco):

and drove to Ephesus, a city of ruins about 20 minutes from Kusadasi, This was a major cultural and economic hub with Greek, Roman, and Mesopotamian influences over the centuries. Peter (twice) and John (the disciples) and the Virgin Mary (late in life) all lived here at one time (a separate tour went to where Mary supposedly lived, lines to see it many hours long). On the drive, we observed fig and olive orchards and mulberry trees (on which silkworms feed, more on that below). Ephesus was itself an port city at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, but over the centuries, silt was deposited along the coast and the sea receded, leaving the city about 5 miles inland. This photo, with the city cemetery in the foreground, shows where the coastline was..the taller distant building on the left was a Roman bath, since people entering the city had to wash their feet before entering!

This is the street leading from the city to the port, mostly made of marble...very treacherous walking!

The city has only been about 10% excavated and excavation is actively ongoing. This photo shows the original ground level on the left where the trees are, and how far they dug at this particular spot.

There were cats everywhere (but very few dogs)...

The Romans built expanded the Ephesus stadium to about a 25,000 person capacity around 68AD. At that time the Christians were being persecuted, and we saw some symbols in the paving stones near stadium that showed the Christians defiance (kind of hard-to-see red circle with spokes)

. The stadium has hosted recent music performances (e.g., Elton John), but the most recent by Sting and Diana Ross so damaged the seats with the sound produced that they are having to do extensive repairs, and we were told that the blue cranes shown are the only reason the whole thing hasn't collapsed

As we walked along the treacherous downhill main marble street.

we saw many interesting things:

There were public toilets, where men sat side by side, reading the newspaper and discussing politics and other topics. (The women had private facilities in their homes)

The holes below were deep to minimize the smell, and there was a small pool in the facility with frogs. Why? Their croaking helped mask the embarrassing noises, of course?

The Ephesus library (Library of Celsus) was third largest in the world at the time. Built in 117AD by the Romans, it had about 12,000 scrolls. It was destroyed abut 100 years later, and was just reconstructed in the 1970s.

The library was across the street from the city brothel (of course). The following Latin engraving was on some arches in this square, maybe our smart grandkids will know what it says

There was a temple

There was a fountain

Housing for the well-to-do, with mosaic flooring

The mosaic flooring is not dyed but the natural stone color, so it hasn't faded over the centuries in the intense Turkish sun

The houses had running water, carried by tile ducts

Holes were drilled into the marble street stones for better traction for chariots

The Gate of Hercules, which stopped the chariots from entering the narrower pedestrian path

A hole drilled in the street to hold a torch as a street light, and four corner anchors to hold a small fence around the torch so it wasn't knocked over

Between the stadium and the library was the market place, longer than a football field

The market place policies were literally set in stone

The Roman baths had a cold plunge and hot baths...with their own furnaces!

A 1000 seat theater, that originally had 16 pillars in front and was totally covered to shade the sun (the guide said it gets up to 120 deg in summer

We were overwhelmed with the history of the ancient city provided by our guide Suzie. but I recall:

- At one time, Ephesus had 250,000 people (they determine this by multiplying the stadium capacity by ten for some historical reason).

- After the sea receded, the city had to be evacuated due to malaria carried by the residual mosquitoes.

- It had its own gladiator school

- Ephesus was the site of the Temple of Artemis (Diana). It was built and destroyed several times, and it was huge: 450 ft by 250 ft. The temple no longer exists.

Just outside Ephesus was the site of chariot races

After returning to the port from Ephesus amid a torrential hailstorm (2nd day in a row where the end of our tour coincided with heavy rainfall, we've been very lucky), we were escorted to the tour guide's favorite rug shop. They showed us the process of producing silk threads (the silkworm cocoons are soaking in the tub on the right...they magically extract up to one mile of single-strand thread from a single cocoon using the machine on the left).

They make silk, wool, and cotton rugs in various combinations. This area is trying to keep the art of rug making alive, and we saw a demo of how they weave a rug using a loom (looks pretty tedious)

They put on quite a show to try to sell their rugs to use, gave us pastries and various drinks (beer, Turkish wine, etc). They then put on a show where they piled rug on rug on rug to show various sizes and colors.

Blue is apparently a special rug color. This particular one supposed took 3 years to make, and the price of $35,000 was mentioned. I don't need a rug that badly!