My Weekend Around Selçuk

So, I spent the weekend in Selçuk, and it was very relaxing. Before you read this post racked with anticipation: no, I did not go to Ephesus. Yet.

When I arrived there Saturday morning I made my way to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers. This is one of the quirkier of the many quirky Byzantine legends, but it deserves mention for its widespread popularity both among Christians and Muslims. So the story goes, seven Christians were given the choice to suffer death or recant their faith. They went up to a cave to pray, fell asleep, and were sealed up in a cave by the Emperor Decius. They woke a hundred fifty years later during the reign of Theodosius II to discover a Christian empire. Their cave in Ephesus is the most prominent and widely accepted of the many sites to claim the (somewhat dubious) honor of being that very cave. Well... there it is.

Having taken a cab, I had the driver drop me off at the ruins of the temple of Artemis, just on the edge of town and an easy walk back to Jimmy's Place. This was a truly magnificent building in its day, with 127 Ionic columns. Today, it's a single column in the middle of a particularly sad swamp. Lots of cute turtles, though, as well as considerably less cute locals trying to hawk off genuine fake ancient coins (I bought a couple anyway).

Well, I was walking back through town past a couple of sites I was resolved to see later when a few young guys about my age began yelling in my general direction. At first I pretended not to hear them since I had my iPod on (always a good bet), but eventually they persisted, so I turned. After chatting for awhile and finding out that they were actually Kurds, I decided to hear out whatever it was they had to offer. The older of the two (still younger than me, I think), named Salatin, pointed out the castle on the hill. He told me it was an Ottoman citadel, and offered to show me around.

Knowing that I was going to have to pay for it, I thought I'd have some fun anyway. Turned out to be an excellent choice. The Selçuk citadel isn't exactly closed off, but it's not open to tour groups; they're getting ready to begin a major renovation and will hopefully turn it into another one of the town's many sites. As it was, I got to see it first.

Salatin took me around the walls, some cisterns, and even a hamam (Turkish bathhouse), but the real treat was going inside the abandoned mosque. I even got to climb up the minaret!

After throwing a couple of lira his way I went to the Ephesus Museum. This is a collection of artifacts from excavations that have taken place since the English stopped pillaging things for the British Museum in London, as well as a few items the Turkish government has managed to reacquire. The most impressive pieces, undoubtedly, are the many-breasted statues of Artemis:
After a good nap that turned into a good night's sleep (much to Maria's dismay), I got up the next morning and headed by taxi for the only church in the area I knew of: the Catholic shrine on the supposed site of the House of the Virgin Mary. The shrine is actually quite nice, although no pictures were allowed inside. The Mass ended up being outside, in the cold, but there were large Irish and Italian pilgrim groups there who were happy to smash me into the warmth of their crowds.

Later that day I took a dolmuş (mini-bus) to the nearby village of Şirince. This lovely little town tucked in the mountains was originally a Greek village until the residents were driven out in the forced population transfer after World War I. Since then it has been repopulated by Turks and is a center of wine-making in the region. It also hosts a partially restored church, St. John the Baptist, once attended by the Greek population.

Having calling the tour group I'm going around Turkey with, I knew that I would have Monday (today) largely free. Therefore, when the folks at Jimmy's Place offered to book me on various tours, I jumped right on it.

So today I was able to get to three unexpected finds: Priene, Miletus, and Didyma. These were all once on the Aegean coast, but because of silting and earthquakes they are several miles inland, just like Ephesus. Priene hosts a well preserved theater, bouleterion (where the civic leadership, called the boule, met; pictured left), and a prytaneion (where the upper leaders met and where the eternal flame of a city was kept on a hearth-shrine to Vesta), as well as a grand temple to Athena. Interestingly, an inscription found at Priene (though no longer at the site) contains the word euaggelion, pronounced eu-an-ghel-e-on, which we translate as 'gospel' and from which we get the word 'evangelical.' However, it is not used in any Christian context; it refers instead to the gospel of Caesar Augustus. The good news, that is, of Roman rule. In ancient Rome, you see, you'd be far more likely to fill in the blank with 'Caesar Augustus' than with 'Jesus Christ' is you ever heard the phrase: "Hear the Gospel of our Lord and Savior [BLANK], Son of God."

But I digress. Miletus has a great theater on site complete with prostitution cavities inside the vomitorium (I'll leave it to you readers to piece that one together yourself) as well as a great port half-enveloped by a swamp, but the truly interesting thing is the various persons the city has sired in its long history. To name but two: Thales of Miletus is considered the first philosopher in western history, standing at the head of the many presocratics who asked such fundamental questions about the nature of existence; and there is also Isidore of Miletus, one of the two chief architects who designed the Hagia Sophia (which I ought to see later in the week).

After a rather mediocre lunch (but who can complain at 80 lira for the whole day?), we visited the final site of Didymus. This was not a city like the former two, but a large sanctuary to the god Apollo. The oracle of Didymus contended with the Apollonarian site on the island of Delos as being the second most important prophetic site in the Greek world behind the oracle at Delphi. Amazingly, the shrine as it stands today is largely unreconstructed, preserved merely by (as the oracle might have told you) fate:
Each year in what eventually became a panhellenic festival, the site was the end of a mass procession 23 kilometers long starting in Miletus, the last 17 km of which was known as the Sacred Way.

After the end of the tour and spending a little more time in the lobby of Jimmy's Place, I caught a dolmuş up to the large Aegean coastal city of İzmir, ancient Smyrna. Here I've met up with the Seven Churches of Revelation tour.... and all its 150 travelers.