This is a series of articles covering our cruise in 2009. At the time this series was originally written my blog featured only a few photographs per article. Typically four only. Each article has been revised and added to in September 2017 and all photographs replaced with larger and increased quality images.
Click each photograph below for the associated article.
Reading the paper today - shows how lacksadaisical I'm feeling for a start...
Apparently the results of a survey done by a travel-related website "shows" that Britons are "rather confused" about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Apparently one in eight claim to have seen the Colossus of Rhodes, a statue destroyed around 900 years ago. Perhaps they were thinking of that big chap who tries to entice you into his cafe for a drink after watching you wave away his neighbours who are doing exactly the same...
One in twenty say they have been to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey. And I, folks, am one of them.
Admittedly it doesn't look much of a temple these days and the bulk of stone has been nicked from the site to build other things. The one standing column has been cobbled together from lots of bits, probably not all originally from the same pillar.
But it is undeniably there.
Three percent of people claim to have been to the Statue of Zeus at Olympia too. I am not one of those. But I have been to the site where it stood and there are again some rather large chunks left of the building that housed it.
So if I saw a survey question that said "Have you seen..." I would say no, but if I saw "Have you been to..." and it was about a relic where the remains can clearly be seen (in my view this is true of the Temple of Artemis but not of the statue) then I'd struggle to express it in terms of "yes" or "no". Have you been to Stonehenge? But that's a ruin too...
I suspect that a few of the people surveyed may have been less confused about where they had been and what they saw than were confused at the meaning of the questions - though I admit I haven't seen the survey so cannot say with any certaincy in this case.
Every time I receive a survey, almost regardless of where it comes from, there is inevitably at least one - and sometimes every - question that requires a yes/no answer that simply cannot be answered that way. It's a tactic used by some to ensure that survey results meet their own ends. People who are confused will either not answer or will forget the big "if" in their mind and select the most appropriate - which may not be appropriate at all - answer.
I am reminded of a schoolteacher who once told us about a man who had died from drinking water. He had drunk several buckets of it in fact, trying to win a bet.
So... drinking water... is it dangerous? Please answer "Yes" or "no" only...
Saturday, 21 August 2010. The Thomson Celebration is in Kusadasi, Turkey. The main tour of the day will be going to the ancient city of Ephesus, but having been there twice already (links to relevant blog entries at the end) we are today going to see the remains of the basilica and the tomb of St John the Apostle who came to live here and perhaps wrote his gospel here.
Moored on the opposite side of the wharf was a huge cruise ship of the Celebrity-X line. A Turkish dance troupe was doing their stuff on the dockside, but I'm not sure whether they were for the other ship or for us or perhaps weren't all that bothered and would do their stuff for anyone who showed an interest...
And before I get loads of emails asking about that really weird hat the chap in red is wearing, if you look again a bit more closely you'll see that it is a woman standing behind him! Her sleeve is the same colour as the ship and even I looked twice when I saw it! Looks a bit like a fish with a bird's legs standing on his head...
So we lump ourselves onto a coach and sit looking bemused at the staggering amount of people who seem unable to understand the need to find a bus marked with their own ship's name or the correct number before our guide decides he's got enough of us to go and we set off on our semi-biblical morning.
The first stop is at the golden statue of the Virgin Mary on the hillside leading to her house, which again we have visited before and the links are below, should you be interested. The statue was the gift of an American Society and that's as much as I had an interest in knowing before the marvellous views over the steep drop on the other side of the road took my attention. No doubt the guide told the rest of the bus load the date it was built, the material, the weight, how many mules it took to bring it up the hill etc...
But I had found something else to look at and it was a sight missed by the vast majority of those whose attention was making the guide think "Hey, these dates are really grabbing them! I must look up some more for later on in the tour..."
On the hillside opposite is the Odeion or Small Theatre close to the entrance to Ephesus. It was built as a council chamber aound 150 BC and was originally roofed and seats 1400 people. The city of Ephesus continues to the left and then round away from our viewpoint around the edge of the hill against which the Odeion is built. Hey up! They are all heading back towards the bus! There's only three of us have bothered to look this way.
The Basilica of St John was built over the remains of a first century AD temple around 530 AD by Emperor Justinian, who you may remember from an entry of a few days ago, was also building Hagia Sophia and the water cistern at Istanbul at the time.
This is a partially reconstructed wall to give some idea of how the basilica may have looked. I'd recommend a visit to the Sacred Destinations web site for anyone interested in reading further. They also have a photograph of a model of how the basilica once looked.
There were several rebuilds of the city of Ephesus. The first city was on top of the hill on which the basilica stands, in the heart of what now is a ruined fortress. The famous ruined city we visit today is the third city and the modern one, close to this hill, is now called Selçuk.
The Tomb of St John the Apostle. The central dome of the basilica was placed over the tomb. A small grating can be seen to the left of the photo. Behind this again is a rectangular grated hole with steps leading down, presumably into the chamber of the tomb. St John is the only one of the saints whose body has never been claimed by any church. The legend is that on entering his tomb whilst alive, an intense light prevented the other apostles from following him. When the light dissipated, so had all sign of him. Just a dust was left, floating in the tomb. Manna... The tomb was opened in the reign of Constantine the Roman Emperor. No body or relics were found.
The size of the basilica was such that if still standing it would today be the seventh largest basilica in the world. It fell into ruin with the decline of Ephesus and was converted to a mosque in 1330 only to be completely destroyed in 1402 by the Mongol horde of Timur or Tamerlane who had conquered almost as much of the world as Alexander and was likewise termed "the Great". He had been through Delhi and Moscow and was on his way back from Persia when he passed this way and the story goes that the Ephesians were so nervous they sent all their children to process out of their open gates, singing. Tamerlane is reported as saying "What is this noise?" and then commanded his nomadic horse warriors to ride down and kill the children under the hooves of their charging mounts. There is no way to play down the horror of that act.
Some ancient wall paintings depicting saints are on display in situ - in a small room, almost a cave. However they can only be seen from inside and you are not allowed in. To facilitate viewing a large mirror has been placed on the rear wall but in reality, all you see is your reflection - silhouetted against the bright doorway whilst all the surrounding detail is pitch dark by comparison. I took a photo but only saw the painting on the left once we were home and I had fiddled for quite a while with Photoshop! The painting on the right can vaguely be seen, but the head is obliterated by the glare of the reflected doorway.
Recent excavations have revealed this baptismal pool.
From the basilica site you can look down to an earlier site. The Temple of Artemis was one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Destroyed by earthquakes and looted for building materials there are just a few scattered stones and one reconstructed pillar. A link to a previous visit is below.
Previous related entries from this blog:
Turkish Delights
The Awe-Inspiring Ephesus
The House of the Virgin Mary
The Temple of Artemis
Thursday, 19 August 2010. Following our visit to the Blue Mosque we come out of the courtyard through an archway and across the way we see our next port of call.
This is the Hagia Sophia or Sancta Sophia. Not St Sophia. In this case sophia is the phonetic spelling for the Greek word for wisdom. The full name of the church is Church of the Holy Wisdom of God.
We are in James Bond territory. In the 1963 film From Russia With Love this is the church that Bond waits in for Tania, the Russian agent to bring him the plans of the Russian Embassy. A Bulgar agent gets to the plans first, but Spectre assassin, Grant kills him and a bewildered Bond takes the plans from his body.
In the film a Guide points out this huge marble jar to some tourists.
Bond has been waiting for Tania from the dark of the side passages underneath the balcony. There are some low wooden stages with wooden railings and I stepped up on one of those to take photos of the main floorspace. Although they weren't roped off and there were no warning notices this turned out to be against the rules. Unfortunately the official who was trying to get me off was standing behind me and instead of calling out, just kept tapping on the railing. I never even heard him and it wasn't until Fran called out that I turned round.
This is an extremely old and important place. It was first built in 360 AD by the Romans and the foundations of that early building are on display today. This is the third basilica started only a few days after the destruction of its predecessor. This was in the year 532. Until the Basilica of Seville in Spain was built in 1534 it was the largest basilica in the world. Think about that - it was the largest cathedral or basilica in the world for a thousand years! It includes some of the columns from the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World at Ephesus.
The balcony is reached today by what was described as a "spiral staircase" but turned out to be a rectangular spiral ramp that had been designed to allow baggage-laden mules to reach the upper floor. No doubt the Sultans' wives would not trouble themselves to walk either! Here Fran is demonstrating how out of breath she was...
The view from the balcony is well worth the climb. We were told that the scaffolding is permanent. It just moves about a bit. With the successful invasion by Ottoman forces in the year 1453, the church was converted to a mosque.
Images of saints, apostles, and angels were either destroyed of plastered over. The removal of this plaster following the building's subsequent conversion to a museum in 1935 revealed some damage to underlying artwork, which was made worse by damp conditions due to leaks in the roof and rising damp from below.
As a museum the basilica now displays both Christian paintings and Muslim calligraphy.
There are several fine mosaics with gold and precious stones. This one shows the infant Christ held by the Virgin Mary flanked by Emperor Constantine offering a model of the city of Constantinople and Justinian, the builder of the Hagia Sophia, offering a model of the basilica. It was warm. I melted into the shadows at the back of the basilica and kept a careful watch for Bulgar agents and assassins...
Monday, 24 August 2009. We left the more modern delights of the steam locomotive museum at Camlik and travelled to a car park by the side of a marsh. The ground was, thankfully, dry and covered in fallen stone.
In one place a single column had been re-erected. I have seen photographs that look like the column rises from a lake... This was the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The list of awe-inspiring buildings and sites of which the only one left standing in a condition to give sightseers any idea of what it may have originally been like is the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Of the sites, two were in Egypt; two in Greece; two in Turkey and one in Babylon.
You can get an inkling of what this temple may have looked like if you visit (as we shall, later on this trip) the Parthenon, high on its hill at Athens. But the Temple of Artemis was almost four times the size of the Parthenon.
The Turkish Artemis is not the same goddess that the Greeks worshipped. She was a godess of fertility and hunting and was depicted with either many breasts or perhaps with eggs, hung from her body to represent motherhood and fertility. In fact there was evidence of five temples built one above the other. Wars, earthquakes and vandalism had done for them. The previous temple had been the pride of Ephesus.
It was burned down in 356 BC by a young Ephesian, Herostratus, who wanted to go down in history. It was such a hideous crime that his wish was quashed by a law making the mentioning of his name punishable by death. And yet... we know it... The rebuilt temple that became one of the Seven Wonders was the first building to be constructed entirely of marble. 425 x 225 feet, it had 127 columns to hold up the roof. It was still under construction when Alexander the Great came here in 333 BC - by coincidence he had been born the night Herostratus had burned the previous temple down. The building reportedly took 120 years, although some now dispute this and think half that time would be a better estimate.
It was built on this marshy ground to try to save it from the effects of earthquakes. Silting of the river and coast had caused the ground to rise by at least 4 or 5 metres since the 8th century BC when the first temple had been built. To prepare the ground large quantities of charcoal and fleeces were trodden into the marsh. It stood until destroyed by the Goths in 262 AD when both Ephesus and the cult of Artemis were in decline. Constantine, the Roman, rebuilt Ephesus a century later, but left the temple crumbling. The single re-constructed column is all that remains standing of the temple. Beggars, mostly children, swarm around visitors with hands held out. Their controller, their Fagin, sits by his car, watching...
We didn't stay long. It was enough to see what there was to be seen and to be able to say we were there. The coach returned to Kusadasi and the Thomson Celebration, stopping on this hill for a photo opportunity overlooking the port and ship. That brings to an end our day in Turkey. Tonight the ship will sail back towards Greece, though we have a change in destination for tomorrow. We were due to visit the port of Thira on the island of Santorini. But the port is a tender port - the ship would anchor offshore in the lagoon of this island group and ferry passengers in by tender boat. The weather is such that this would be too dangerous and so we will be heading for Samos instead.
I took the photo of Kusadasi's fortress as we sailed out of the harbour.
Monday, 24 August 2009. We had left the House of the Virgin Mary behind and travelled to a crowded coach park on the edge of the ancient city of Ephesus.
The city was reputedly founded by the female warrior sect, the Amazons. There were people living here as far back as 6000BC. It became a centre of the Ionians, sided with Greeks and Spartans against Persia, was ruled by Alexander the Great and later by the Romans under Constantine. We are impressed as soon as we enter the city, but the route that tourists take has been cunningly laid out so that it just keeps getting better and better.
As we enter the site we see the Odeion or Small Theatre which was built around 150 BC. It seated around 1400 people and was used both as council chamber and as a theatre. It was originally roofed - there are no gutters to take rainwater from the stage area. We spent a few minutes exploring it, even though Ghengis,our guide, had told us not to get too excited about this as there was a larger theatre to come later.
The Pollio Fountain. A major statue resides in a museum and the statues grouped here were brought following the collapse of an adjoining building. According to an inscription, the fountain was constructed by Sextilius Pollia in 97 AD.
One of a pair of flying representations of the goddess Nike that adorned the Gate of Heracles which gave access to Curetes Street.
According to mythology, the Curetes were semi-deities who clashed their weapons while Zeus's mistress Leto gave birth to the twins Artemis and Apollo, so that Zeus's jealous wife Hera would be confused and not see the birth. (They led complicated lives, the Greek gods - but they were easily distracted...)
The Trajan fountain. The fountain was erected between 102 and 104 A.D. and as the attached inscription reads, was consecrated to the Emperor Trajan. This is a "reduced" reconstruction as originally the pediment was set 12 metres high. Most of the statuary from here was so fine it is now in the museum.
The Temple of Hadrian on Curetes Street. Here we see the front of a porch - the main building was set back and we shall see an arched pediment on that presently.
On the front of the porch in the centre of the arch is a bust of Tyche, the goddess of the city.
On the arched pediment of the temple itself is what was described as a Medusa. It doesn't look like a Medusa it looks more like a youth with curly hair and on a subsequent visit this was described as a representation of Hadrian's male lover. History can sometimes change as our understanding of events and knowledge becomes clearer or better supported from new archaeological finds.
There are some well preserved fragments of carving here. This row of figures was carved before the year 138, though what we see here is a cast of the original which is in the nearby museum.
The latrina built in the first century AD are the public toilets of Ephesus. The toilets were ranged side by side with no partition between them. In the middle was a square pool. The floor was paved with mosaics. A sponge on a stick was the Roman's version of toilet paper. It would be cleaned and rinsed in the gutter to the left of the chap's feet which would have running water along it.
The Library of Celcus. Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus between either 105-106 or 106-107 AD was the Proconsul of the Asian province, the capital of which was Ephesus.
This is a reconstruction. It was built between 110 and 135 AD, destroyed by fire some centuries later and finally toppled by an earthquake 900-1000 years after it was built. The facade was reconstructed from fallen stone in 1970-78.
The upstairs windows face east so that the morning sun shone into the reading rooms. They were glazed with horn to let in light but to keep out rain and wind which might damage the scrolls kept in the library.
The gate with three passage ways at the right of the Celsus Library was built in 40 A.D by the slaves Mazeus and Mythridates for their emperor, Augustus, who gave them their freedom.
A detail of the carving on the face of the gateway. A damaged bull's head carving can be found in a corner of the gateway interior.
We passed through the gateway and came to the area where both St Paul and St John had preached. St Paul became embroiled in arguments with the silversmiths whose living was dependent on their sale of small figures of the goddess Artemis whose temple was nearby and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The magnificent amphitheatre is the second one you come to - even the first which was more a political debating forum is impressive but this is much larger and is why Genghis had told us not to be overly impressed with the Oedion when we first entered Ephesus. St Paul preached here for three years, this being recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts mention the Riot of the Silversmiths - they made silver figures of the goddess Artemis and Paul's attempts to convert people to Christianity were bad for business...
The Great Theatre was first constructed in the Hellenistic Period, in the third century BC during the reign of Lysimachos, but then during the Roman Period, it was enlarged and formed its current style as seen today. It seats 25,000.
Harbour Street runs from the theatre down to the old Roman Harbour. In the 1700 or so years since the fall of the Roman empire the harbour silted up so much that the sea is now seven or eight kilometers away. St John the Apostle fell foul of the same silversmiths as St Paul and was chased down this street, taking refuge in a castle on the hill in the distance. The Roman general Mark Anthony visited Ephesus often, but in 33 AD he brought Queen Cleopatra with him and they walked hand in hand down this street.
