Turkey in Ruins

By Keelin Curran
All This Is That History and Archeology Editor






Turkey is in ruins, and fully alive at the same time. I love ruins, and did not fully realize when we selected this destination for our trip exactly how much in heaven I would be here tramping around the churches, columns and caves.


A salvaged frieze from the Temple of Afrodesias


Aphrodite (aka Venus) herself, from the Afrodesia Musem of statuary, friezes, etc. Click to enlarge.

In college, one of my sidelines was Greek archeology. I even took a few semesters of Ancient Greek. On one of our earlier trips to Greece, I tracked down a just-discovered (1979) Minoan temple site destroyed by an earthquake in 18th century BC—Anemospilia—see http://www.uk.digiserve.com/mentor/minoan/anemospilia.htm based on the xeroxed information my professor at Hunter College (whose name I don’t recall, but who was an acolyte of renowned Greek archeologist Emily Vermeule) had handed out to the class.


The gate to the Temple of Aphrodite. Click to enlarge.


A close-up of the gates. Click to enlarge.

I travelled by bus, and tramped around the hills near Iraklion to find it. It was not much—just three rooms you could imagine based on the stone foundations, but they had done sacrifices there that brought the place to life—and death--as this passage describes:


Del Brummet ponders a statue of a philosopher in the excellent Afrodesias Museum. Click to enlarge.

“The west room is, in many ways, the most interesting. . . . [t]his room was used for blood sacrifices. Uniquely in Crete, three skeletons were found in the room. Two of these people, a man and a woman, had been killed by the earthquake and resulting fire. Another male skeleton was also found in the room. This body was found lying on an altar. A knife was resting on the skeleton. The feet had been tied and it has been argued that the young man had been sacrificed and the blood drained from his body. If so, it might well have been his blood in the vessel found in the antechamber next to the skeleton. It is most likely that the normal victims of sacrifice would have been bulls, but in the face of seismic activity which threatened the whole community, it may have been considered necessary to make a human sacrifice.”


Colum Brummet emerges from the gladiator's tunnel at the vast 30,000 seat stadium at Afrodessia. Click to enlarge.

This is about as dramatic as it gets in the ruins world, but well illustrates the open-ended speculation (along with tolerance for sifting and digging) required to do this work.


The 30,000 seat stadium & gladaiatorial venue at Afrodesia.

Anyway, since that 1982 trip to Anemospilia, I haven’t been able to indulge my ruins interest until the last few weeks. The family has been most accommodating in patiently going along on trips to see Agia Sofia in Istanbul, (not a ruin, an amazing, living space from 6th C BC but still a lasagna of one culture on top of another, as ruins often are), the cave dwellings and churches of Goreme, and more recently, the ruins riot that is Ephesus, and most dreamily, the ruins of Afrodisias.

I barely know where to start in talking about these experiences. Goreme and Cappadocia were the most mysterious and humbling. These cave refuges of troglodytes and early Christians were often built at great heights above the current ground level—or far below ground. How did they get up there? How did they tolerate long seasons underground? You have a sense about how scared these people must have been, much of the time, threatened by Hittites and Romans et al. The spaces are so small. They would have known everything about each other—a contrast from our life of screens and large dwellings. And the simple, repetitive and sometimes beautiful scenes of the life of Christ in these churches give one the sense of how much reinforcement is necessary to start a religion from the ground up.


Jack in the Bouletarian theatre that served as the ruling council's meeting place as well as a theatre and performance space.

Then, Ephesus and Afrodisias. These two cities give a living sense of Roman life, in its beauty and brutality. The museum near Ephesus had a riveting exhibit on gladiator culture in ancient Rome, complete with an analysis of the wounds suffered by gladiators based on the skeletal evidence. This culture existed among the beautiful marble buildings and statues; blood and circuses and Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe. Yet you can not help but compare the artistry born of imperial ego, politics, wealth and will in these urban spaces with those we inhabit and find our world poverty-stricken in comparison.

At Afrodisias, up until the last few decades, the town of Gehre was built right on top of Afrodisias. Townspeople built there modest houses braced by the bottoms of roman columns, and crushed their grapes in roman baths. The Temple of Aphrodite, unreconstructed, was a field for their livestock. Seeing the pictures of Gehre (since moved a few kilometers, sadly, to allow the excavation) gives one the sense of how we are just the latest layer in this earth lasagna.

Okay, I will stop. Thanks to you All This Is That readers for indulging me in this Turkey travelogue. We have more ruins to go, so life is very, very good for that reason and all the others that make travel so great.
---o0o---

Where am I? Dacha, I think?

Poem: Moslems vs. Nazarenes vs. Pagans

1.
Moslem shepherds steal ınto the strange caves wıth paintıngs
And scratch the eyes out and throw stones at the heads
of figures on the frescoes.

2.
The Crusades.

3.
The Christians charge in
And carve crosses into the foreheads
Of fallen statues in the Roman ruins

Like somehow that will make up for
Whatever they did or didn't belıeve

4.
A lot of us don't belıeve this
But they were all people just like you and me.
And ın some strange way
They were just all tryıng to save each other.
---o0o---

Pıgeon Valley ın the Goreme

click to zoom in on Pigeon Valley

Our last trip in the Goreme was to Pigeon Valley. The views were incredible, and the shops pathetic. I mention the shops, because this was perhaps the one time our driver stopped by a site where he might have been im cahoots with the merchants. We were, as always, stalwart ın our defenses against The Merch. The offerings were the usual, and as always iın Turkey, they were not overly aggressive. We came for the views and that's all we took away with us. Selah.

İt was a great road trıp, but in retrospect, having had a car a few days ın Selcuk and Efes, we're pretty good at operating our own tours. But our driver dıd cap it off by giving us a watermelon feast iın a meadow across from the caravanserai.

click to enlarge

Our driver was a good guy, and we all liked hıs grandson Abdullah... Anyhow, I am still a litle out of order here. . .İ have yet to write about our day ın Ankara, the plane flight to Selcuk, or even the really fascinatıng bus rıde from Ankara (thumbs up to Turkish Aır!). And I stıll need to write about Ephesus. And my essay on Turkish cuisine. And our Pensione owner ın Goreme. And, after today, our visit to St. John The Baptist's basilica, and Ephesus, of course, not to mention the fantastic Ephesus Museum.

Colum, our driver, Abdullah, and Del - click to enlarge

We didn't learn much about this valley, but there are hundreds of dwellings carved from the tufa hillsides, as well as a lot of stone and masonry houses constructed as infill (real estate name drop).

---o0o---

Ephesus: my favorite ruins of all time

The Theatre at Ephesus - clıck to enlarge

İ'll write about this more, when I get 'net access and some free time again,m but Ephesus ıs by far the most impressive ruins I have ever seen ın Europe or Asıa. Here ıs one quick photograph of the theatre. It held 25,000 people. It stıll does. We were hoping to be able to catch a performance there (can you ımagine how cool ıt would be to see a play a play by Sophocles Aeschylus there?).

---o0o---

A vısıt to a Caravanseari

The gate to Hoca Meset Caravanserai

Yesterday (or maybe the day before?...we've since been to Ankara and Ephesus...dıd ıt even really happen iıf I couldn't get wiıred up to write about ıt?) we vısıted The Hoca Meset Caravanseri ın the Goreme. Caravanseris were a sort of hotel/way station for camel caravans that brought goods back and forth along the Aksaray Layseri highway. It had numerous spacious stalls, both open and closed, for use in the summer and winter. There were rooms for camels and rooms for the men. As hot as it is here (ın the 90's), it is hard to believe there is ever really a winter...but there is, and it gets cold...similar to the extremes of clımate in the eastern part of Washington State, or the middle-west. Interestingly, as we took the bus here, when the mountains receded iınto the distance, the landscape very closely resembled the rolling plains of the midwest, say like Iowa or Kansas. But just when I thought that more mountains would appear, or once, a gigantıc salt lake (or possibly an inland sea).

The Caravanseris looked very castle-like, and had domes, and elaborately carved gates, as well as to turrets. Although we were told they were just basic stopping places for camel trains, they were defınitely spiffıer than, say, your usual Motel 6.

Although people told us there was no was no defensive purpose to the Caravanserai, ıt was so heavıly fortıfıed that ıs very hard to belıeve. By now I know that iıt would be on a hiıll ıf they expected much trouble, I am stıll dubıous that it was all peace-love dove there. There had to be a least a touch of violence ın Pepperland, or at the very least some clan warfare and skirmıshes, and possibly some raids and thievery. It wasn't fortified for nothing.

Sleeping chambers off a central courtyard

This particular Caravanserai was built in 1231. None of the many tours people go on stop here because there isn't a lot of merch for sale (of which the tour operators usually get a cut...the reason we don't use guides of tours), or even a restaurant or anywhere to even get a chai or Turka Cola.

---o0o---

The Selime Monastery and the İlhara Gorge

OK....the internet here in our hotel is sketchy to say the least, complıcated by the Turkish keyboard, whıch ıs dıfferent enough that it took me half an hour to figure out whıch keys to hit to log in...

The İlhara Gorge

The Ilhara Gorge - The family hiked with our young friend Abdullah through the Ilhara gorge. My knee was killing me (since in remission...I thınk I torqued it ın that run of eıght mıle walkıng days up and down the steep steps and hılls of Istanbul...ıt seems good for more abuse now), so I waited for them at the end, where I wrote a poem (see: http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2008/06/poem-in-greme.html), drew two pictures, and drank three glasses of chai.

Claıre and Jack drinkıng chai on the creek at the end of the gorge

Inside the sanctuary

We also vısıted another church in the hills,(The Selime monastery). Yes, another cave church, but this was the most elaborate and complex of any we visited in Gorem (and we visited at least six or seven). The church itself was far more archıtectural and elaborate that the cruder ones we'd see hacked out of tufa ın the Underground City. The sanctuary was a very tall barrel vaulted structure with two domed apses on a T ın the front. The frescoes were again paınted by schooled artists, and the overall finish seemed to indicate that the people who buılt this ıntended ıt to be more permanent.

The outside of the Monastery

Claire and Abdullah ın a room ın a cave ın the monastery

---o0o---

The underground city

--as usual, click all photos to enlarge--

In one of the cave kitchens, four floors beneath the earth

We went on a long tour today, hitting at least five interesting geological, historical, and religious sites. The first stop was the underground city, an enormous cave of interconnecting rooms, four stories of which are open to the public for exploration and to give us all a serious case of the willies. It was fascinating. And spooky. The underground city reaches down nine stories into the earth...a puzzling labyrinth with hundreds of tunnels connecting rooms on each level. Each floor contained dwellings and various public rooms, churches, wineries, cooking caves, and stairways leading up or down to the next level.

A room three stories down -click to enlarge

A ventilator shaft that goes down nine stories

The entire time I was in the cave, I was a little nervous about earthquakes, the possibility of an entire busload of tourists panicking and heading for the exits (the tunnels and staircases are rarely wider than two and a half feet). And then, what if the lights went out?! Without a torch, could you ever possibly escape? Well, as you see, I was a nervous nellie, because we made it out after an hour...

a staircase leading down to the next floor

More tomorrow-- my travelling partners, aka family, promise to pull up their slack and write about some of the other sites we saw and adventures we had today (like an amazing cave church in a remote mountain; a hike along the gorge, and a visit to a caravansary. Tomorrow morning, we travel via bus to Ankara (the capitol) for one night, and then fly off to I forget where for the next leg of the trip. In closing let me say that one thing I've learned on this trip is the enormous difference between a vacation and travelling...I have yet to put my feet up and read the weighty Melville tome I brought along. That will happen later in the trip. I hope!

Jack with a bouquet of wildflowers and poppies he picked for Keelin at a crater lake

---o0o---

Jack's version of a ceramic mosque tile

click the tile to enlarge...

---o0o---

Poem in Göreme

A breeze carries
The scent of horses
Along the creek
________________

A band of swallows
Spins a circle
Fifty meters toward heaven
________________

The creek alongside me
Carries raindrops, tears, and snow
That may once have landed

In Johannesberg, Soho
Bucerias, Constantinople,
Athens, Ketchikan, or Saskatoon.
________________

Six ducks, looking exactly like
Their American brethren
Wait for handouts of bread

From the waiters
As each table of German, French,
And Japanese tourists

File out, refueled and ready
To restock the tour buses
And move on to the next stop.
---o0o---
Göreme, Turkey, June 27, 2008

A restorative Hot Springs visit in the mountains

Tomorrow, were doing something we've never done in our travels. We're taking a tour. Or rather, we're hiring a van and driver to take us on a 200 kilometer tour of some outlying areas. When Keelin--savvy negotiator she is balked at the price, our friendly local scooter renter (who we also spent the night with watching the Turkey v Germany match) offered to take us at nine o'clock tonight to a hot springs. Of course we jumped at the chance. If you've read All This Is That long, you know I am a hot water aficionado and this would be an awesome chance to soak in the geothermal waters of Turkey. Of course there are hot springs here--there have to be if you have seen the utter devastation the three volcanoes wrought as they exploded and created the fantastic tufa towers of the Goreme.






The springs were about 25 Km. and a somewhat harrowing van ride away. We passed dozens of slow moving trucks crawling up the mountain pass, and finally hit a reasonably smooth dirt and gravel road. When we arrived the place looked closed. It was. But they gladly opened it for us (opening it consisted largely of taking some Lira from us). The facility was extremely rustic in the best sense of the word.

The hot springs were piped into an Olympic sized pool, and the water was perfect, although cooler than I keep my my own backyard hot springs. It was about 100 degrees. At one end a chute funneled in water at about 130 degrees. Naturally I spent most of my time at that end of the pool. We got them to turn off the lights and we could see billions of stars--even more than you see in the heart of Montana. With zero light pollution, dark skies rule the day. You could see the stars so clearly that in spots they looked like a picture of the Milky Way, with dense star formations that almost looked like fog or clouds. We could also see satellites and shooting stars and more constellations than I have ever seen in my life. We soaked, talked, star gazed and swam for about an hour and a half.

The water was perfect, and unlike most hot springs, there was almost no sulphur smell at all. The highly mineralized (I'm pretty dubious this is actually a word) water felt great on the skin, and extremely soothing on our weary limbs after another day of tromping up and down hills in the mid-day sun.
---o0o---

Cappadocia's Goreme Open Air Museum, Churches, and Troglodyte dwellings

A fresco of Jesus in the black church - click to enlarge


A tufa tower with many dwellings. I could not figure out how they got to the higher caves. A local said there hand and footholds and the inhabitants climbed to their homes.


The most famous sight--and justifiably so--in Turkey's Cappadocia region are the thousands of cave dwellings and at least 400 churches built into rock caves. I won't go into the history of the Saints or the story of how Christianity took a foothold here, but it is a fascinating and moving story, particularly since Turkey is now virtually 100% Moslem.

The famous open air museum at Goreme is only about a mile walk from town. It's the second open air museum I've visited (the first was the Desert Museum in Tucscon, AZ). There were a lot of German and Japanese tour groups (including some amusing ones, like a Japanese tour group that all wore matching canvas vests). But we were mostly able to shoot ahead of them, skip some churches and dwellings and circle back later.

The caves are all pretty cool, but most amazing are the painted cave-churches. Medieval orthodox Christian monks (1000-1200 AD) carved the caves from the soft volcanic tufa and decorated them with elaborate Byzantine frescoes that were clearly painted by skilled artists. Some dwellings and churches did have outsider sort of art painted by troglodytes (a/ka/ cave dwellers), but almost all of that art was decorative and non-objective...like you see in Mosques.

The troglodyte habitations in Cappadocia were probably occupied since Hittite times, but Göreme is best known for these 1000 year-old churches.

Most of the frescoes in the churches have been pretty compromised—by wind, water, weather, earthquakes, and (I learned later tonight from a local friend) shepherd boys who used the faces of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the disciples figures as rock targets. These shepherds had been taught that images in church (even infidel churches) were sinful. Despite all of that, most of theart has survived...even many faces.

The best frescoes are in the Karanlik Kilise (Dark Church), where most of the paintings have been restored (and where I could not take pictures due to restrictions on flash). I think I mentioned earlier that some of the rock towers and dwellings were shot as backgrounds in the first Star War movie. It really is another world here...like something from Mars. Or Star Wars.


Interior of a typical cave dwelling (at least typical o the ones we saw)


Tufa Towers


Frescoes in the dome of a church


Keelin and Del on the steps of a cave church


An explanation of the nunnery


A painting on the rib of a dome


A damaged fresco of Jesus--o0o---