As we woke
this morning we were just pulling into the harbour of Izmir. It was shrouded in smog. There were a lot of high rise apartments on
the hill side that just looked like shoe boxes. A quick breakfast then of on
our tour to Ephesus.
Four million
people live in Izmir – 60years ago there was a population of only one
million. Our guide pointed out ‘Goat
Tower’ built in 133 bc. This was one of
three Roman watch towers that protected Ephesus. Izmir was the birth place of Socrates. The Temple of Dianna in the 5th
century, one of the ancient wonders of the world, was also in Ephesus.
Ephesus was
built by Alexander the Great, and on his death, because he had no heirs the
area was given to the Romans. Many of
the ancient ruins a mix of Greek and Roman architecture.
Ephesus was
built between two high hills. There was
a small opening at the land end and the valley ran all of the way downhill to
the sea. The Romans installed pipes so
that the water could be put under pressure and then sent along the plateau at
the beginning of Ephesus and on down the hill through the rest of the
area. There were channels along the main
pathways that water was allowed to run down and thus had a cooling effect in
summer. The public toilets were built
under the bath house so that the water from the baths washed everything and
kept the area clean. There were ruins of
terrace homes that had been 3 stories high.
Each one had a balcony that looked out over the fountain water feature
in the front area. No-one had front
doors, and entrance to the house was always through a side door and up to the
second floor. The bottom area was not
used for housing.
The legend
is that the area was originally inhabited by Amazon Women. There is a wall carving of one who is known
as ‘Niki’. Our guide pointed out the
curve in the lower part of her dress and told us that it is from this that the
‘Nike’ swoosh was copied. A lot of
these things aren’t necessarily true but it gives the guides something
interesting to say.
Another bit
of trivia is the word SPA comes from a saying by the Romans – health by water –
the initials spell spa.
The disciple
Paul lived in Ephesus until he was taken prisoner, held until he was finally
executed. It is also said that the
disciple John had originally returned to Ephesus with Mary after being banished
from Jerusalem between 37 and 42ad. John
continued to write the Bible until his death.
He was buried in Ephesus. The
English crusaders mission was to collect the remains of St. John and take them
to England. At that time Ephesus had
been uninhabited and so the crusaders took over the area.
There have
been a number of earthquakes and natural disasters in the area over the
years. In 1850 some Englishmen were
invited to excavate. In more recent time
a team from Austria, after heaps of investigation, rebuilt the library from a
pile of ruins into the very impressive building it is today. Over 90% of the materials used was original.
There is
also an amphitheatre which was built by the Greeks and then improved on by the
Romans. They counted the number of seats
and then multiplied the number by ten to work out the population of Ephesus in
that time. There were 25,000 seats. This was the formula that was used in ancient
times to decide how big to build their arenas.
There have
been modern day concerts held there but no sound systems can be used anymore as
the vibrations from one concert sent a huge rock tumbling. The most recent concert held there was Elton
John. The seating now is limited to
10,000 for safety reasons.
There were many stall holders trying to sell us all sorts of things as we returned to our buses. One that really amused us was a sign directing us to where we could buy
'Genuine Fake Watches'
It was a
fascinating place, and we enjoyed our tour.
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