Lost Yer Marble

Ephesus is a very famous ancient city. Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time inside a Christian church probably knows about Paul's letter to the Ephesians. This is the city the letter was sent to. There were three different Ephesuses, but only the remains of the third city can be seen. The marble that was used to build the first city of Ephesus was taken to build the second. When the second city was destroyed the marble from that city was used to build the third city. It makes sense, because marble was and is very expensive. The third city was built during the Roman period around 100BC. It became one of the largest cities in the Mediterranean with a population of around 250,000. The third city was finally destroyed by a giant earthquake in the 7^th century AD. After that, the city was conquered by the Seljuk Turks in 1090, which ended Byzantine rule. It was reduced to a small village by the time the second Crusade happened.

The first stop we made was at the house of the Virgin Mary about 7KM away from the Ephesus excavation site. It is believed to be the last place Mary lived before her death. There is no way to confirm this, but John the Baptist was known to have lived in Ephesus. If stories are to be believed, then John took care of Mary after the death of Jesus, which means that she would have lived in Ephesus with him. Now, it has become a place of worship. Daily prayer is held outside the home. Inside the home, no photography is allowed, but there is a statue of Mary. There are also a few relics left by Pope John Paul and Pope Benedictine on their visits to Ephesus.

The house of Mary

A prayer wall

Today, around 20% of the third Ephesus has been excavated. The proper city of Ephesus is being slowly uncovered, but what they have already dug up takes around two hours to walk through. They have figured out a basic layout of the city. They have located the entrance gate, the bathhouse next to it, and the temple of Hestia near the hospital. They have also uncovered the Library of Celsus, which is the third largest library of the ancient world behind Alexandria and Pergamon. Next to the library, they found the “love house,” which apparently is connected to the library by a secret tunnel. The main road, Hercules Gate, and an extremely large amphitheater have also been excavated. You can see where the city walls were, but they are on top of very tall hills. Hopefully, they will finish excavating the site, and you will be able to see the entire ancient city of Ephesus. That would turn a two hour tour into at least a five or six hour tour. Possibly needing a day to itself.

A view of the area Ephesus used to cover

Small amphitheater for nobles

The hospital. Represented by the snake, just like today.

Hermes

A relief of the goddess of victory: Nike

The road to the library

The main road. Emily looks like she's in pain, because the sun was very bright.

Everything was made of marble, so mosaics in front of the houses were used as a show of wealth.

A relief of Medusa. It is the only example from the ancient world where you can see Medusa's body, not just her head.

Shitters for rich people. Apparently, in the winter, they had "seat warmers." A slave would sit on the ice cold marble to warm it up for their master. That job would have been horrible.

The library

Two advertisements for very different things. The one on the left is for the "love house." It basically says, if you have a broken heart and money, walk this way, and you will see beautiful women. The one on the right was a marker letting Christians know that other Christians are present. Early in Christian history, they were a radical sect of Judaism, so it wasn't always safe to be Christian. This was to let them know there were friends in the area.

Inside the main amphitheater and a wide view of the amphitheater

The road to what used to be the harbor is behind us.

After lunch, we were taken to a leather shop. This area of Turkey is known for exceptional leather goods. The fashion show was hilarious. The female models looked like they were bored. They had probably done the same show at least half a dozen times that day. The leather itself was high quality, but the prices on the tags were inflated to the point that the “special” 50% discount made the cost just as high as anything brand new.

The next stop was a museum where many of the statues and everyday objects from the Ephesus excavation site have been put on display. A lot of the things were very interesting, but the museum was filled with loud school children there on a Saturday field-trip. They didn't exactly set the atmosphere for museum viewing. Still, you could get close to the statues and reliefs and see great detail in the work. By this point, everyone was getting a little tired though. Most of us had woken up early, and one group had taken a flight from Istanbul at 7AM for a day tour. They were getting back on a plane after the tour. It didn't help that they went out and drank a little too much raki (an anise liquor similar to Greek ouzo) the night before.

The reliefs from one of the temples and a closeup.

Our final stop of the tour was the once great temple of Artemis. It is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, because of its size (100 meters long, 60 meters across, and 19 meters high) and the fact that it was the first marble temple. Today, all that remains are a bunch of marble stones and one column made using mismatched stones that they could piece together to show how tall it was. The rest of the temple was “recycled” as our guide put it, to build other structures in the area. Honestly, the temple of Apollo at Didyma was much more impressive, and it is still at least partially in tact. Unfortunately, it was never finished

Emily once again showing how tiny she is.