AROUND EPHESUS

SIRENCE & SELÇUK - JULY 2009



"SIRENCE - Once a Greek village, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, it looks a lot like Berat


"STREET BAZAAR"


"HOUSES""


"BAZAAR - Genuine Fake Watches? Never seen..."


"REMOVING OBSTACLES"


"SELÇUK FORTRESS - On Ayasoluk Hill"


"BAD LUCK - Warning on the wrong side doesn't let you see the storks..."


"BASILICA OF ST. JOHN - St. John is believed to have spent the last years of his life in Ephesus writing his version of the Gospel. And Justinian I ordered the construction of the church in the 6th century on what is supposed to be the burial site of John the Evangelist"


"ISA BEY MOSQUE - Constructed in 1374-1375, by the Seljuk beys"


"BODRUM BAY IN GOLD"

EPHESUS' MASTERPIECES

EPHESUS - JULY 2009


"HADRIAN'S TEMPLE - Built before 138 A.D by P. Quintilius and dedicated to one of the Five Good Emperors (Hadrian, who came to visit the city from Athens in 128 A.D), it is one of the best preserved structures on Curettes Street. The façade has four Corinthian columns (two square and two round) supporting a curved arch, with a relief of Tyche, goddess of victory"


"HADRIAN'S TEMPLE - Inside the temple above the door, Medusa stands with ornaments of acanthus leaves. On both sides there are friezes depicting the story of the foundation of Ephesus"


"CURETTES STREET - Full of tourist heading to the most fabulous of the (reconstructed) ruins - Celsus' Library. Built in 117 A.D. by Celsus’ son, Gaius Julius Aquila, to honour his father Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, the governor of the province of Asia and a wealthy local citizen, it is one of the most beautiful structures in Ephesus. It served as his tomb, which was an unusual fact, since people were not buried within a library nor even within city limits. The grave of Celsus was beneath the ground floor, across the entrance and there was a statue of Athena, the goddess of the wisdom, over it"


"CELSUS' LIBRARY - The Library, though built on a narrow lot between existing buildings, has an effect of monumental size. That's due to some tricks: at the entrance to the library there is a 21-meter wide courtyard; nine wide marble steps lead up to a two-story gallery; pediments are supported by a double-decker layer of paired columns; centre columns have larger capitals and rafters than those on the end. All this gives the illusion that the columns are farther apart than they really are. Adding to the illusion, the podium beneath the columns slopes slightly down at the edges"


"CELSUS' LIBRARY - The façade of the two storeys library has Corinthian columns on the ground floor and three entrances to the building. There are three windows in the upper storey. The library could stock up 12,000 scrolls of manuscripts, which were kept in cupboards in niches on the walls. There were double walls behind the bookcases to prevent them from the extremes of temperature and humidity. Celsus' Library was the third richest at the time, after the Alexandria and Pergamum"


"FRONT - Detail of relief at the top centre of the façade"

"STATUES - The statues that may be seen in the niches of the columns nowadays are the copies of the originals taken to Vienna. They symbolize wisdom (Sophia), knowledge (Episteme), intelligence (Ennoia) and virtue (Arete)"


"LIBRARY & MAZEUS GATE - The gate with three passage ways at the right of the Celsus Library was built in 40 A.D by the slaves Mazeus and Mythridates for their emperor, Augustus, who gave them their freedom"


"GREAT THEATRE - Located on the slope of Panayir Hill, opposite the Harbour Street, it is the most magnificent structure in Ephesus. First constructed in the third century BC, during the reign of Lysimachus, it was enlarged in the Roman Period. It is the largest in Anatolia and has capacity for 25,000 people"


"GREAT THEATRE - The Theatre has sixty six rows of seats divided in three sections: the lower section, with marble pieces, used for restoration, and the Emperor's Box; the middle section, with seats with backs made of marble, reserved for VIPs; and the upper circle, for the audience. The stage building has three storeys and is 18 meters high. It was used for concerts, plays, religious, political and philosophical discussions and also for gladiator and animal fights"


"HARBOUR STREET"

THE WAY TO EPHESUS

EPHESUS - JULY 2009

A visit to the ruins of Ephesus is a must if you're travelling somehow to the Anatolian Peninsula in Turkey. The present day ruins are of the city established by Lysimachus, one of the generals of Alexander the Great in the 3rd century B.C. During its Golden Age (2nd century B.C.), the city had a population of around 250,000 and it monopolized the wealth of the Middle East. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era and during the Roman period, it was the second largest city of the Roman Empire, to the Temple of Artemis, another one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.


"TURKISH ROADS - The distance between Bodrum and Ephesus is roughly 160 km, so we had much time to see roads in Turkey. Sometimes, like in the last row of pictures, one asks himself where the road is…"


"LAKE BAFA - The lake used to be a gulf of the Aegean Sea until the sea passage was closed by the alluvial mass brought by the Maeander River. The southern shore is traced by the highway connecting İzmir-Kuşadası-Söke to Milas and Bodrum. The northern shore of the lake remains virtually untouched"


"EPHESUS VALLEY - Showing also the ramparts up the hills and the Agorae of the ancient city"


"ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE ENTRANCE - As seen from the Odeon"


"ODEON & BASILICA - The Odeon was a small roofed theatre for plays and concerts, seating about 1,500 people. The 160m long Basilica is typically Roman. It was used for stock exchange and commercial business, as well as home to the law courts. It was destroyed by an earthquake in the middle of the Fourth Century AD"


"VARIUS' BATHS - The ruins to the east of the Basilica belong to Varius' Baths (2nd century A.D, though the mosaics in the corridor date from the 5th century). It has three sections: frigidarium, tepidarium and caldarium"


"COUNCIL PALACE - Behind the basilica is the Prytaneion, where religious ceremonies, official receptions and banquets were held"


"COLUMN FESTIVAL"


"STROLLING IN THE OLD TOWN - Starting with the Pollio Fountain, built in 97 A.D. by C.S.Pollio and his family and located near the Odeon, and then moving to the Trajan Fountain, built around 104 and one of the finest monuments in Ephesus. We may also see the ruins of the Domitian Temple - the first structure in Ephesus known to be dedicated to an emperor - and the Curetes Street (named after the priests who took this name later). On the right hand side column: the Terraces Houses, the Brothel, a peristyle house where a statue of Priapus with an oversize phallus was found and the important public toilets. The water was brought from three main sources through aqueducts and distributed from fountains"


"MEMMIUS MEMORIAL - It was constructed during the reign of Augustus in the 1st century A.D by Memmius, the grandson of Dictator Sulla, to remind the conquer of Mithridates in 87 BC"


"DECORATIONS"


"SKOLASTICIA BATHS - The original structure was thought to have been three-storied but the upper two stories collapsed. The baths have a dressing room (apodyterium) with ten cabins, a cold room (frigidarium) with its pool, a warm room (tepidarium) to relax, and finally a hot room (caldarium). The second floor was used for massage as a therapy"