Day 12-13

On our second full day here in Turkey we set out for the Selcuk Museum, which houses the top finds from Ephesus. One thing that we all agreed on is that the Turkish people / government have done a great job at preserving their country’s archaeological history. They showed off many of the sculptures that were found, and had little shots of where the statue was found and what condition it was in.

Regarding inscriptions (one our focuses on the trip), the museum had a huge slab that contained instructions regarding harbor matters, that was later re-used in a church – St. John’s – which is also believed where the tomb of John (who wrote the Johanine Biblical letters) is contained.

After that we stopped for lunch at a nice little cafe on the way back to the Ephesus site. I had a pide, and a Turkish coffee. The pide, is kinda like pizza on a thick bread – I loaded it up with some crushed pepper – and devoured it. It was probably the best lunch I’ve had on the whole trip. Compared to the Greek coffee – both are made in a similar style (small cups, grounds in the bottom, strong), the Turkish was much better.

Back at Ephesus, we casually walked through the site again taking note of items that we might have skipped over on the day before. The highlight for this trip was when we visited what has been named the Serapion (which is kind of a guess, as the altar that it contains is to an unknown deity). This part of the site is officially off limits to tourists, but our course director, Dirk, managed to get permission. We were supposed to be escorted by the Polis (how they spell police – and they carry automatic machine guns), but when nobody showed up when ventured on by ourselves. The path leading there was overgrown by grass and thorn bushes, but we were able to get through without too much trouble. When we arrived, we saw massive stone columns (about 15 meters high – approx 45 feet), which were mostly broken and fallen down, but still impressive. The temple there was dedicated to some sort of deity linked to water. This was a reocurring theme we saw throughout Ephesus – they were far advanced in their plumbing, and ability to deliver water within the houses. They also had several bath houses (mostly from the Roman era), and had multiple spots within their houses that had basins for water as well. To get an idea of the size of the Serapion site, see the pic below.

After Ephesus, we headed back to the hotel to relax before dinner. The heat here is scorching – by the way, just after we left Greece they are in record high temperatures as well – so it is definitely a sight to look forward to, to get back to the hotel and shower or hit the pool.

Day 13

This morning we set out for the site of anceint Priene. Today was a field excercise of sorts for us, in that we were given a basically blank map (it did have some things identified in German), and were to navigate our way through the site taking note of particular structural items – such as the theatre, Bouleterion, gymnasium, and anything else that stuck out to us. Further, we were given the challenge to hunt down an inscription that was originally discovered and published, but the last time it was seen was in 1905. Dirk, our course director, is writing a paper on this city, and wanted to see if we could track it down. The hard part is that it was last seen below the acropolis of this site (basically it was on the side of a mountain). So we set out to find it, but after I lost my hat I went back to find it, then back up the hillside by myself. Shortly after I couldn’t find anyone, so decided to see how high I could go. After about 15-20 minutes I stopped to cool down and regain some strength, when I noticed another person from our group about 100 feet down! I went a little too far, but even though I went much higher, none of us could find the location of the inscription, which would have marked the entry of water into the site back then (now it was just a bunch of broken rocks and the remains of the city wall). Still I was able to catch a spectacular site from how high I was (see the shot below), and until now the inscription will remain hidden (unless it’s in a museum somewhere that nobody knows about.

This is our last night in Kusadassi, as we set out tomorrow morning back on the ferry to Samos, Greece – then small plane to Athens, connecting flight to Heathrow, 2 hour taxi to Cambridge. So, it will be a long day of travel – we’ll leave 8-8:30 am, and arrive in Cambridge around midnight. I’ll probably end up at the same internet cafe in Samos while kill time before our flight, so I’ll post some add’l pics and thoughts from there.

When we get back to Tyndale House, we’ll have Monday as a day of rest then on Tues or Wed, we start our modules, and there is a conference hosted by Tyndale House that we will be able to participate in as well. All in all, I’ve enjoyed traveling to these amazing places, but am looking forward to getting back to Cambridge and settling in a bit. As we get there I’ll probably post less frequently, but will post pics on Flickr as I venture around the area, and definitely when we go to Italy July 16-17, I’ll post about that as well.

Thanks for all the emails / comments, and your prayers as I’m out here!