Celsus Sojourner: Ephesus

I've been enjoying a long break and haven't posted in a while. Ramadan has been going on since before I arrived in Turkey around August 11 and has proceeded until September 10. There's been a big holiday break marking the end of the fasting period and I've enjoyed it thoroughly. I also haven't posted anything lately and I've explored quite a bit so tis post will be dedicated to Ephesus.

The House of the Virgin Mary is a short distance away from the ruins of Ephesus. It's a Muslim and Christian Shrine and is massively popular. It sits on Mt. Koressos and it's believed by many that Saint John took Mary here after Jesus' Crucifixon. Obviously, there can be no scientific evidence to back this claim up.

A French priest stumbled on the chapel in 1881 as well as the ruins of the city of Ephesus, claimed the above story-citing the visions of a German nun named Anne Catherine Emmerich as proof and was promptly ignored. Two missionaries stumbled on the same ruin ten years later. A distant mountain village whose inhabitants had been making pilgrimages there for quite some time, indicated that they also believed it was Mary's final home. The village's inhabitants were descendants of Ephesian Christians.

The building that stands today stands on top of the original ruins. A mountain spring still bubbles fresh water very near the stone house today and a constant stream of people come here to pay respects or just out of curiosity.

Ephesus is a short distance away

I'll try to give only a limited background on Ephesus and just let you look at the photos. I'm not a historian and the history is far too complicated for me to cover here but there is an interesting mix of legend and facts that helped me appreciate it more, even if I retained something like %10 of it. Our guide was very well-verse in the history of this place and it was very interesting to listen to him. Ekin, who I sort of work in the library with, was kind enough to organize the whole trip for myself and several other foreigners.
The actual city of Ephesus was founded as a colony about 3km away from the center of the city that I walked through. This happened around 1000 BC. Excavations show that the area was inhabited in the Neolithic age around 6000BC.

Original Ionian Column head. The Bull's head demonstrates Persian influence on the greek architecture. Several different cultures and religions peacefully coexisted here for thousands of years and, inevitably, were influenced by one another.

Most of the construction is white marble, the most common kind. The city itself is well-preserved because it sat between two mountains and was eventually buried after it's decline and abandonment.

Ephesians had a sophisticated plumbing system that was compose mostly of terra cotta pipes that look like this.

This arch was the entrance to the main Agora at Ephesus. An Agora is a place where people met. There were lots of shops and people sometimes did military exercises there. It was a major economic engine for the ancients.

Senate floor. The acoustics were still really great.

and entrance

They really knew how to build to withstand earthquakes. Lot's of engineering secrets died with the Greeks and Romans.

Ephesus was a significant place for Christianity after the death of Christ and it's believed that Paul ran missionary journeys out of the city from sometime in the AD 50's. Apparently some folks who made their living selling idols of Artemis around Ephesus were angered by this. (The temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and built at Ephesus around 550 BC but there's one column left so the picture isn't that impressive.) Anywho Paul was either imprisoned or protected in this tower so the Artemis-worshippers wouldn't kill him and he supposedly wrote letter 1 Corinthians while there.

By the time the Roman empire wanted to conquer Ephesus and the Ionian states, the inhabitants were accomplished businessmen an not warriors. They paid tribute to the Romans through money and by building temples to significant Roman figures to honor them like gods. Only fragments of some of these temples remain.

Base if the Gate of Hermes

Another side of the base. Hermes is my favorite Greek God. He is the great messenger between the worlds and the only one who can travel freely to and from the underworld. He wears a lot of hats but is likely pictured here for his role as the god of commerce.

I think this is another part of the Agora. It had ancient Köfte vendors all over the place, which were sort of like ancient fast food. Köfte is like meatballs and Turkish people still eat it today.

More temples, partially standing. Some of them were put together from fallen ruins in the wrong order when the tourist trade opened in the fifties. I have no idea about these.

This is Nike, the winged goddess of victory. She's seen on a lot of Greek coins and a lot of people believed she was really close with Zeus and Athena.

Gate of Hercules (Heracles)

Original street of Ephesus, much wider on this side of the city. We're getting closer to the library and the harbor district here.

This temple is significant because the original figure (Apollo I think) had a spherical earth at his feet. You can still see the foot and the sphere. The greeks had an understanding of a round earth and Eratosthenes ( a humble librarian of Alexandria) even calculated the earth's circumference to within 100 miles.