On the way home...

Well we made it from Gaziantep to Istanbul, and we spent the night back in our original hotel, staring out the window at the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. A 1:45 AM wakeup and a few flights later, we're 30K miles over the Atlantic, checking email and watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Scheduled to arrive in Atlanta around 3PM.

This trip has been a wonderful experience, and I thank you all for participating virtually on the trip. I have a lot more pictures and a lot more to say, so if you are interested, please let me know.

Back to my "real world" tomorrow, if you can call it that...

Sorry I have been offline for a few days, internet troubles...

We survived our Turkish domestic flight, and we have arrived in Adana, Turkey, on the very southern border. We stayed last night at the Hilton, which was a much needed touch of American culture. Earlier we were in Cappadocia, a mountainous region famous for its unbelievable rock formations, see below, and its pivotal role in forming the doctrin of the Trinity in the 4th century, via figures like Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus.

Much more to say, but I have to run so I just wanted to share the pictures. We're off to Tarsus today to see the home of our good friend St. Paul, then down to Antioch of Syria, modern Turkey.

Two days till I start my journey home, look forward to seeing you all.



Here is a good view fo the Cappadocian lanscape. Looks like a combo of the Grand Canyon and somethign out of a Dr. Seuss book. That little door at the bottom is someone's home, which we toured. It is carved right into the rock. Mike, I think this is a good real estate venture for you.













Here is a shot of our gruop tournig the undergruond village, a system of caves carved into the rock, which goes down about 100m! Claustraphobia, anyone?
















Great view of the landscape.















Another great view. All of those holes are little houses or storage areas, and some are churches, which run quite deep into the rock. Teh rock is volcanic, so it is easy to carve.














In some of the churches are incredibly well preserved frescoes, like this one of Christ the pantocrator.















The most famous fo these is the dark chruch, part of a monastic community, probably from about the 12th century. you see the front entrance here.












And inside you see some of the most breath taking frescoes ni the world, perfectly preserved becasue of the caves. This room is about 50 by 50 feet, and it is coveredin drawings like this.

Perge, Aspendos, Antioch of Pisidia, and Konya

My apologies for being offline for the last two days. Unfortunately our hotel did not have great internet access, and thus I was unable to update the blog. We have seen some really interesting stuff, though. On Thursday we visited the ancient cities of Perge and Aspendos. Perge was a brilliant Hellenistic city that the Romans rebuilt, adding a mile long road in the middle of town which had water running from a fountain at the head all the way down the middle of the street. Aspendos is not much of a town, but it has a completely in tact theater, which gives a real sense of what the theater in ancient times was like.

Antioch of Pisidia was essentially the Rome of the east, rebuilt by Augustus after 25BCE. It is important in Acts 13, as it is the site where Paul delivers his first address to the synagogue.

Finally, on Friday night we pulled into Konya, which was an important part of Turkish history during the Celcuk period (12th and 13th centuries). Here we toured tile and stone carving museums, and we also visited the shrine of Rumi, who is a major figure in Islam.

Saturday afternoon we drove 4 hours up in the mountains to Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey. Here Christianity flourished in the 4th and 5th centuries. The region is full of underground cities and caves, which the Christians used to hide from the Arabs when they came into Turkey. We'll be spending our day tomorrow here, and staying here tomorrow night. On Monday we fly to the south of Turkey for our last few days.

The highlight of today was the Whirling Dervishes show that we saw tonight. The Dervishes are Muslims who spin around as a part of a ceremony, begun in the times of Rumi, which allows them to mystically unite with god. Can't really describe it beyond this, but just imagine 4 guys in long white dresses spinning around for about half an hour with music playing, it was quite unique and impressive. No photographs allowed, though.

So, things are going well. The trip is certainly winding down, but we have some great sites ahead of us. Dad, we have not found Noah's Ark yet, but I'll keep my eyes open. I'll also be looking for the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.

Hope everyone is doing well. I hope the girls enjoyed Atlanta.

Bo


In Perge we got our first closeup view of the Roman aqueducts.












Here's the incredible Aspendos theater, taken from the worst seats in the house. You can just make out one of my professors singing opera to the entire theater in the center.










Here's the major road (Latin "cardo") in Antioch of Pisidia. You can get a sense of how high up the city is, overlooking the surrounding area, and just how cold it was here. The wind was blowing and we were all freezing.









This is the altar of what's often called "St. Paul's Church" at Antioch. It is a 4th century church, making it one of the two oldest churches in the world. Many believe that this is the site of the synagogue in the city, where Paul preached his sermon in Acts 13.








Here is the tomb of Rumi in Konya.


















And here is the beard of the prophet Muhammed! (in the box)

Aphrodisias, the big day

On Wednesday we went to Laodicea and Colossae, both important centers of Pauline Christianity in the Lycus River Valley. Both sites are completely unexcavated, and thus they are just giant hills that you know have fantastic ruins below, but no one has dug them (the Turkish government is very tight with permits). The more important visit of the day, though, was our trip to Aphrodisias. It is Aphrodisias that I delivered a report to the group on, and it went quite well. Aphrodisias was originally a shrine to Aphrodite, probably growing as a city out of the shrine in the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. The city was good friends with the Roman emperors, and that helped them out. It's important for those of us who study the New Testament and Judaism because an inscription was found there (probably from the 3rd century CE) which lists the names of many Jews, proselytes, and "God fearers", along with their occupations. From this list we get a sense of the social and economic role of Jews in a major Roman city. Like Sardis, we see that they in fact had a fairly significant role in the city. Other than this inscription, though, the site is very well preserved, and we spent about 2 hours there looking at the ruins.

From Aphrodisias we drove south to the southern coast of Turkey and the major city of Antalya. We are staying a the 5 star Talya hotel here, which is very nice. One more night here tonight, and then we're off to the north, heading into the moutains. Everything is still going well. There have been several calls for more "human interest" pictures, and for that lack I have to apologize, I just don't take pictures like that. I'll make a more concerted effort to do so, though. No worries about bird flu, we're about as far away from that stuff as you are.

Here you see the reconstructed Tetrapylon, which is a four gated entrance to one of the major roads in Aphrodisias. In the background you see the columns of the Temple of Aphrodite. This building dates to about the 2nd century BCE, but there are remains of an earlier shrine below. In the 5th century CE, it was converted into a Christian basilica. You can also see the mountains in the background.





Here's the theater in Aphrodisias. It would have held about 8000 people, and was probably built in the first century BCE. The back wall, behind the columns on the stage, is completely filled with inscriptions about the history of the city.









Here you get a good shot of the South Agora in Aphrodisias. The middle of the agora (common market area, Roman "forum") is completely covered with a large swimming pool (you can see one end in the foreground). This pool was over 200 meters long.

You see that snowy mountain in the background? That's where we're heading for the next few days.







One of the most amazing ruins at Aphrodisias is the stadium. It is the best preserved stadium in the world. Dating from the 1/2 century CE, it would have held about 30,000, and was used for athletic contests, wild beast games, and gladiator contests. Here you can see some of my colleagues racing.

Sardis and Hierapolis

On Tuesday our group left Kusadasi and headed north east. We stopped first at Sardis. This site is incredibly important for the study of the New Testament and Judaism because we find here, in the middle of this large Roman city, a large synagogue. Inscriptions tell us that the land for the synagogue (probably built in the 3rd century CE) was dedicated by the city to the Jewish community. So we see here evidence of a Jewish community that was wealthy and influential in an otherwise extremely Roman city. Normally we think of Judaism after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70CE as a weak, poor person movement. Here, though, we see evidence for a correction to this view. After Sardis, we headed to the modern city Pamukkale (means "cotton castle" in Turkish), which is the ancient city of Hierapolis (an important center of Pauline Christianity). What is incredible here is the natural springs that arise, and the white cliffs that are formed as a result (Sodium bicarbonate in the rock is under intense pressure, and the water from the natural springs releases carbon dioxide and leaves calcium carbonate). So we see why the Turks call this the "cotton castle." This site was also a major Roman city, and it has a fantastic necropolis (graveyard). We also have above the city the shrine of St. Philip (the apostle), a 5th century church.

We stayed the night in Pamukkale where we enjoyed the hot springs and naturally heated pools. The hotels continue to get nicer, so we have that to look forward to.

Here you get a view of the Sardis synagogue from the back, with several of my Emory colleagues looking on. You'll notice the lavish mosaics on the floor, the altar at the front, and the incredible size of the space. This was no poor Jewish community!









To give you a sense of how integrated the synagogue at Sardis was to the surrounding city, check out the view of the baths taken from the synagogue. This structure is impressive, and house a complex system of Roman baths. Certainly the Jews must have been an integral part of the community.







Now we've moved to Hierapolis. You see here the church of St. Philip, way up on a hill overlooking the entire city. The church is just ruins today, but it combines an interesting octagonal architecture, with several important early Christian icons carved into the stone.














Here's the view of Hierapolis and the white rocks from the church of St. Philip.













And here's a closeup of the white rocks. Water flows over different sections of the rocks at different times; here no water is flowing over these rocks.

Priene, Miletus, and Didyma

On Monday we spent the day at three ancient site aroudn the city of Kusadasi. First was Priene, which is a little known site on top of a big hill. This site was destroyed by the Persians in the 4th century, and thus they had to start from scratch. For this reason we get a great glimpse of the Greek grid city, developed in the 5th century. Only problem is, that this site is on a giant hill, so we see the grid pattern modified to fit the site, with the streets being replaced by ramps and stairways. From Priene we moved to Miletus, a city that was on the sea, but now is about 10km inland. Notable at Miletus is the enormous theater, which has an inscription that reads “Place for the Jews and those that fear God” etched on one section of seats- Reserved Seating for Jews! Most of Miletus is actually underwater during the winter, so we couldn’t see much more. From Miletus we traveled to Didyma, which was the cult center of ancient Miletus and is dominated by the Temple of Artemis, which is enormous. This temple was the headquarters of the oracle at Didyma, which was surpassed only by Delphi in notoriety. This temple is very well preserved, and you get some sense of how incredibly large these temples were. Also, the temple was never completed, so we see some columns standing that don’t have the flutes etched in.

We are now in a new hotel in Pamukkale, which is fantastic. More on this later.

Here you see the theater at Priene, complete with the altar to Dionysius at the center. You can also see at the top some goats that have intruded upon our tour of the ancient ruins!










Here you see a major thoroughfare of Priene, and you get a sense of what I'm talking about with the streets. You can see the drainage pipe at the center of the street.










As we turned the corner of the street to leave Priene we were greeted by two horses in the road. This country has more stray animals than I have ever seen. In the foreground you can see Prof. Carl Holladay and in front of him our Turkish guide Tosun.








Here is the temple of Artemis at Didyma. You really can't understand how enormous this place is. If you look at the bottom you can see a human figure, providing some sense of scale. The columns are 60 feet high. The building is more than twice the size of the US Supreme Court building. You can see the back column has not been fluted, as the temple was not completed.






And now you can see what happens when one of those columns falls down. This is on the back of the temple, and the archaeologists have left this fallen column in place. The Romans built these things in sections, erected them, and then carved them. You can also see the yellow lab that followed us around for most of the day; again, lots of stray animals.

Ephesus

We spent all of Sunday in Ephesus, an amazing site. Ephesus, a major Hellenistic, then Roman, city, is perhaps the most important site for Christianity in Asia Minor. It is traditionally believed that Johannine Christianity was centered here and that John wrote the gospel and the three letters here. Likewise, Paul spent 2.5 years here (according to Acts 18-20) and likely composed 1 Corinthians and much of 2 Corinthians here. Finally, tradition holds that the beloved disciple of the gospel of John (perhaps the apostle John, perhaps not) brough Jesus' mother Mary here after Christ died, and she lived and died here. In addition to these important Christian stories, the city is the best preserved ancient city in Turkey, and it shows some excellent signs of Roman design. It was wonderful to spend an entire day in one site, and with all the crowds, you actually got the sense of what it was like to walk around in a Roman city (although the crowds were all Chinese and taking many pictures, which was a little different. Here are some of my pictures. I have a lot more, but this should give you a good sampling of the site.

Hope everyone is doing well, we head out tomorrow from Kusadasi and drive toward the interior of the country, basically driving through the middle of the country towards Ankara. There are a lot of long bus rides in our future.

This is the traditional house of the Virgin Mary. We know from the gospel of John that Mary went with the beloved disciple and John's community, and tradition tells us they went to Ephesus. This building has foundations dating to the first century. In the 17th century a German invalid nun, who had never left Germany, described this house and the hills of Ephesus perfectly. There has always been a shrine to Mary here, from earliest Christianity. It is now a church.




Here's a good look at the lanscape of Ephesus. It's basically a city carved between two mountains. This part is the Roman section, which was added to the original Hellenistic city. Here you see the Odeum, which is a smaller theater, likely covered originally, which was used for smaller concerts and events.







Here is a look up the Roman road that runs from the Roman addition to the city (where we saw the Odeum) to the original section of the city. All along this road are shops and temples. You can see in the distance the Chinese tourists making their way down...








The road above runs into this road, which is called the Marble Way, and leads down to the Library of Celsus, which you see in the background. This is a fantastic example of a Roman road, which the niches for shops on the left, and the temples and fountains to both the emperors and the gods running down the right.














Here is a closeup of one of the shop niches. You can see the amazing mosaics on the floor in front of the shop.




















Here I am (with some random Chinese guy) standing in front of the library. This building, which was originally a gift from a man to his wife, is the signature ruin of Ephesus. It has been largely reconstructed, but it is a fantastic image of the scale of these buildings.









Here's a great shot of one of my professors sitting on the toilet at the public latrine in Ephesus.












Here is a shot from the theater in Ephesus, and you can see the ancient harbor in the background, with the Roman road leading up to the theater. This place is enormous, and you can imagine 25,000 angry Ephesians yelling at Paul for 2 hours would be quite amazing.














Here is the traditional burial spot of St. John. This is in the middle of an enormous 5th century basilica on top of a moutain, overlooking Ephesus.

Pergamum

Today was a tour of Pergamum. The city thrived in the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, but was willed to Rome in the 130s. The Romans came in and built on the foundations a magnificent city, which was enormous in size. At the bottom of the city is the famous Asclepeion (place of healing), which was basically the “warm springs” of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. Here there are remains of the temple of Asclepios, the god of healing, and the theater that is alongside the site. There are also amazing systems of tunnels and underground “bunk houses” for the sick people. From there we headed up the mountain to the hilltop Acropolis, which is by far the coolest set of ruins we’ve seen. Here we find the Trajinium, or temple to Trajan, the Roman emperor at the end of the 1st century CE. Trajan wanted a big temple, but they didn’t have a big flat space, so they constructed one. I hope you can see in the pictures, but basically the Romans built a complex of barrel vaults to support his massive temple, much of which remains. Pergamum is also famous as the 2nd largest library in the ancient world (Alexandria of Egypt was the largest) and we saw the remains of that. Pergamum is known to Christians as one of the 7 churches to which the book Revelation is written. Specifically John speaks against Pergamum because of “Satan’s throne” which is there (Rev 2:13), which most believe to be a reference to the enormous shrine of Zeus which was there, of which we saw the ruins (picture below). Finally, Pergamum has the largest and highest theater in the ancient world, much of which still remains, and it offers an amazing view of the surrounding country. After a great day at Pergamum, we descended this enormous mountain and drove about 4 hours to Kusadasi, a resort town on the western coast of Turkey, about half way down. We’ll be here for the next 3 nights, as we are making day trips from here. Tomorrow is Ephesus, a really important site for early Christianity (often considered to be the home of the community which produced the gospel of John and the letters of John). This site is very well preserved, and I am really looking forward to seeing it.

Everything is going well. I have a lot more pictures than I show here, but I hope this gives you some idea of the amazing sites we are seeing. Haven’t heard any news from Birmingham, I trust everything is going well there.

Here you see broad view of the Asclepeion at Pergamum. This is taken from the temple of Asclepios, which is at the front of the complex. Healing would have taken place in the courtyard between the columns. In the background you see the theater that is adjacent to the complex.








Here you see a good view of the theater at the Asclepeion, with my friend Eric up top providing an indication of the scale.











Here's a good view of a Roman road, leading from the Asclepeion all the way up the mountain to the Acropolis of Pergamum. This is pretty typical, similar to roads we've seen at Troy and Ephesus, and it has a drainage pipe running the length.









Way up that Roman road we get to the city walls of the Acropolis of Pergamum. These walls were built by the Romans and provide great protection to the city which sits on top of cliffs.










Here's a view from the city walls looking down. You can see in the distance (in the center) a set of Roman aquaducts that led up to the city from 45KM away.










What are these walls defending? For one thing the Temple of Trajan here at this top. This massive temple was for worship of the emperor Trajan (98-117). Starting with Augustus (31BCE-14CE), the emperor was worshipped as a god, and here we see a massive temple recognizing that.








But wait, Bo, I thought you said the city was on top of cliffs. How woudl they have room to build such a massive temple? Funny you should ask, here we see how they constructed, using barrel arches for support, a massive terrace on which they could put the temple. This complex is enormous and the architecture is impressive (it's lasted 2000 years!)






Running down the side of this cliff is the enormous theater of Pergamum. The Romans added on to the Hellenistic theater that was already here, constructing one which is 80 rows high and incredibly steep, conforming to the contours of the cliff, creating a view from the seats of the theater which is amazing. We see big theaters at almost every site, but each is different.





Finally, most of us are familiar with Pergamum because of John's curse of it in Revelation 2:13 for having the "throne of Satan." Here we see the original location of the temple to Zeus which was the signature image of Pergamum in the ancient world, likely the reference in Revelation. This temple, which woudl have had an enormous statue of Zeus would be visible from all of the surrounding countryside.

Answer to Questions

To answer two questions I saw:

BCE refers to “Before the Common Era” and CE refers to “Common Era.” These designations are equivalent to “BC” and “AD,” but I prefer them because they don’t shape time in explicit terms of Christ, which many of our Jewish, Muslim, and other friends might not appreciate. You can use BC/AD, I don’t really care, but in my world, we say BCE/CE.

Mike, haven’t talked too much about the crusades here. In Istanbul, of course, that was a major topic, as the crusaders took over the city for about 70 years and re-established Christian rule. I’ll see if I can scrape up some more details.

Dad, they do let anyone in the mosques, but not during the 5 times of prayer each day. Also, the Christian symbols are only in that one building (Hagia Sophia) which is not an active mosque, but is just a museum (since 1935).

They know those are Neb’s gates because they were found on the site and they match the description in Babylonian literature. Likewise, they know that the stone is from the temple because it was found on the site.

Troy, Troas, Assos, and Lesbos...

Friday was an incredibly busy day, sorry I didn't have time to post stuff yesterday, but I'll try and catch you up here. We started the day in Cenakkale, which is the port city just to the east (on the Asian side) of the Dardenelles. From there we drove in the AM to Troia, which many consider to be the ancient city of Troy, made famous by Homer's Iliad. There is a great debate in scholarship as to whether the Trojan War as presented by Homer actually occured. Homer wrote around 800BCE (though it is doubtful he was a single individual), describing events presumed to have happened around 1200 BCE, a war between Ilium (Troy) and the Spartans (in Greece). In the 19th century some amateur archaeologists thought they had discovered the ancient city, and scholarship has debated ever since whether there is enough of a city here to have been the great city described in the Iliad. They have excavated 9 different cities here (same city, different time periods) and it is an incredibly complicated problem. My own opinion is that there were probably a series of minor skirmishes that got embellished into a legendary story by Homer. Regardless, the site of Troy has some fascinating ruins (the oldest going back to about 3000 BCE, the most recent settlement about 300CE). We spent about 1.5 hours there, and I've included pictures below.

From Troy we went to Alexandria Troas, which is a port city down the coast, site of Paul’s mission activity in Acts 16. Not a whole lot to see there, but a neat harbor where Paul and his buddies set sail.

From Alexandria Troas we drove to Assos, which is a fantastic ancient city built on top of a hill, overlooking the Aegean and the island of Lesbos. Everything you think of in the Greek isles you have here, including the clear blue water, the cliffs, and the beautiful clear skies. We had lunch there, and climbed to the ancient Acropolis, which includes fantastic city walls and the Temple of Athena, a 6th century BCE Doric temple, which stands at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Aegean. The island of Lesbos is where Aristotle did much of his work.

After a long day of ruins, we headed for Bergama, which is the modern name of the ancient Hellenistic, and then Roman, city of Pergamum, which we tour on Saturday. This was a fantastic day of ruins, supplemented by reports from some really knowledgeable people on our trip. Check out the pictures below, though they really do not do it justice.

Here are the walls of Troy VI, which many believe is the layer of the city that could be from Homer. The style of wall here is classically Greek, as you see the smaller, random shaped stones put together. Roman walls incorporated bigger, uniform stones. This wall is the front of the city, which actually backed up to the sea. To answer Mike's question, the sea now is about 500 yards from Troy, but in ancient times the sea would have backed up rigth to the city (whether that is THE troy or not, is debatable)




Here is a good look at the excavation of Troy and the various layers of the city. Archaeologists have identified at least 9 distinct settlements on the site, identified by the different numbers. Troy VI (and perhaps VII) are believed to be around 1300-1200 BCE, the time of the Trojan War.














Now we're in Assos. As we ascend the big hill you can see the towers of the walls of the city.












Now you can see what the walls were defending. This the Temple of Athena on the acropolis. You can get a sense of the scale of this place by looking at some of my colleagues. This site is overlooking the Aegean, the islands in the background are part of Greece.








Here you see the view of the island of Lesbos (modern day Greece) from the Temple of Athena. All name jokes aside, Lesbos is a really important place of Aristotle's works. It is not hard to imagine why he was interested in studying nature after seeing this view everyday!