Afternoon in Ephesus
This short post is about our afternoon in Ephesus, Turkey.
Ephesus is an amazing historical site, and a “must see” destination for anyone visiting Turkey.
We had a long travel day on Friday: waking up early in Uchisar, Cappadocia, driving an hour to Kayseri, flying 90 minutes to Istanbul, laying over for 90 minutes, flying 45 minutes to Izmir (on Turkey’s west coast), and driving an hour to Ephesus.
We spent a few hours in the late afternoon in Ephesus, which has an extraordinary (and extraordinarily well preserved and presented) history.
Ephesus was settled by Hittites in about 1100 BC, and was ruled, variously, by Lycians, Lydians, Alexander the Great, and the Romans. Throughout, it was renowned as a multilingual, multicultural, multireligious, highly tolerant city. Apparently the “live and let live” ethos was driven by mercantile success and pursuit of great creature comforts.
The Greeks built the magnificent Temple of Artemis (one of the 7 wonders of the world). Artemis was the goddess of fertility. The statues of her with bull testicles all over her chest sort of make sense from a “Go Fertility!” perspective, but definitely look unusual.
The Romans made Ephesus the capital of Asia Minor, and built a great (12,000 scroll) library there. The fully excavated and reconstructed Roman merchants’ houses were remarkable: beautiful floor mosaics and frescoes.
We stood on the stage in the restored 25,000-seat outdoor theater. This was the same spot that the Greek tragedies were first performed, where Christians were fed to lions, and where gladiators fought to the death. It was also the same spot where St. Paul (the St. Paul) preached to a standing-room-only crowd of Ephesians. The story goes that a silversmith named Demetrios shouted Paul down, and turned the crowd against him, arguing that Christianity would be bad for business. Paul fled the stage and put himself in the protective custody of Roman soldiers before the crowd could tear him to pieces.
St. John the Theologian brought the Virgin Mary to Ephesus as she fled Roman persecution. She is believed to have died there of natural causes.
Ephesus was amazing. The care and scholarship of the Turks (with help) in excavating the city brings the history to life. We sat on the communal seats of a 2000-year-old public latrine (which freaked out our 8-year-old son). We walked the “stacks” of the ancient library, and read the inscriptions to the provincial governor, and to the emperors.
Our guide, Levent, was excellent overall. He was truly in his element in Ephesus, however, and captivated all four of us for as he explained and dramatized what we were seeing.
Caught up in the spirit of the moment, I picked and ate an olive from an ancient-looking tree. I found out that unprocessed olives are inedibly bitter - duh!
We were also fortunate that Ephesus was relatively deserted while we were there. Apparently, on days when multiple cruise ships pull in, as many as 11,000 visitors pile through the site. That would have changed the ambience a little.
After spending the night in a beachside hotel in nearby Kusadasi, we left the following morning for the four-hour drive down to Gocek (pronounced “GOO-chek”) to meet our boat and say goodbye to Levent.