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.