Scoutmaster trip to Eurpoe 2007

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

By the time Alexander the Great reached the ancient city of Ephesus, two hundred thousand people lived there. The city offered prominent citizens houses with running water (hot and cold), a sewage system, two large theaters, banks, government buildings, a mint, an immense library, a police department, a fire department, markets (agora), public baths, and, of course, temples. Prominent people lived very comfortably; their houses had mosaic tile floors and walls, comfortable bedrooms, dining rooms, and baths. They had slaves, of course, to serve them and cook for them. Their children went to good schools. Other people, merchants, tradesmen, farmers did not live as well, but still had many comforts. Written laws governed daily life in the city, and the many ships from distant ports that brought goods into Ephesus’ harbor had to pay customs duties. Ephesus was well off. It’s hard to believe that after the fall of Rome in the 4th century A.C.E., no European cities could boast having a fraction of the amenities or the “modern” urbane sophistication of Ephesus.

The Greeks founded Ephesus in the 11th century B.C.E., but most of what I saw there today is from Roman times. The Romans conquered the city in the 2nd century B.C.E., and for two hundred years, Ephesus was the center of trade and banking and the capital of the Roman world in Asia. The most magnificent structure in Ephesus is the reconstructed façade of the Library of Celsus with two levels of columns, doorways, windows and statues soaring high above the other ruins. The large theater can seat thirty thousand people, and until recently was still in use. Now, thousands of people, from all over the world, visit Ephesus every year; many coaches filled with tourists come from the cruise ships anchored in the Anatolian waters not too far away.

The local archeology museum has a great gladiator exhibit. Like all large Roman cities, Ephesus held gladiator competitions regularly. As I said earlier, the large theater in Ephesus could hold thirty thousand people; the Coliseum in Rome held fifty thousand people. Gladiators trained like modern athletes; they had their own physicians, and other people to help care for them. Most of the competitions involved two equally matched gladiators; each had equal defensive and offensive weapons, and so far as possible, equal strength and skill. Not often, but occasionally, team fighting took place. It is said that the emperor Augustus once had ten thousand gladiators fighting at the same time! There was a lot of pomp and ceremony associated with the gladiator events. The combatants met days before the actual fight to hear the rules; two tunic-clad referees were in the arena. On the day of the actual fight, an animal hunt would take place in the morning, severe offenders would be publicly executed around noon, and not until the afternoon would the gladiators take to the ring. The gladiators would enter accompanied by festive music and dancers. To warm the crowd up, the first fights would be with blunt weapons, and then the real competition began with the sounding of horns. The fighting would continue until one gladiator was defeated or killed. The vanquished would signal his defeat by laying down his weapons and shield.

In the museum, there are actual skeletons of gladiators killed in the arena. Using modern forensic science, the cause of death is shown. In one example, there is a gladiator’s skull with holes. The three pronged ancient spear that did the damage is also there. In another, the skeleton of a person stabbed in the throat is shown along with the bones of his thorax and the knife blade. It’s all very gruesome stuff.

Now that you are in the mood, there’s more to tell. Surgery and medicine were fairly sophisticated. In the museum the procedure for removing a [kidney] stone from the urethra is described in detail. Anyone interested can send me a message, and I’ll transcribe it verbatim.

After about half a day seeing Ephesus, I took a minibus to the beach at Pamucak. The sand on the Anatolian coast has a soft powdery feel under my foot. I walked along the beach for about a mile, ankles to knee deep in the Mediterranean, and then took another minibus back to Selcuk. When I got to the bus station, I caught a third minibus that took me to a quaint village called Serince, high in the mountains above Selcuk. The people of Serince have fruit orchids, and individual families produce and sell their own fruit wines. The village has tiny winding cobblestone streets, many restaurants, and many places to sample the local wine. I really did not care for the wine at first, but after a few samples, I must admit it sort of grew on me. I enjoyed dinner in Serince. The meal I had included thin pancakes, almost crepes, stuffed with spinach and cheese, and grilled peppers stuffed with a different cheese. The peppers were pale green, almost yellow, and long and tapered. Both dishes were excellent, and after the meal, they served me sweet red and green grapes. It was a nice way to end the day.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

My visit to Pamukale and the ancient city of Heiropolis took all day. Two things interest visitors. The first are the unusual limestone formations with water flowing over them, and the second are the ruins of the ancient city of Heiropolis. Water with calcium carbonate flows out of the side of the mountain, and has formed unusual rounded ledges of white stone; the ledges fill with pale blue water that people wade in. I think the correct name for the chalk material is travertine. Everyone takes a dip in the pools, and gets a lot of sun. The formations are quite beautiful. Heiropolis, is quite interesting too, but the ruins alone, would not attract many tourists.

Two Afrikaans couples, and a couple from California joined me in the van on the trip to Pamukale. We had some interesting conversations comparing life in South Africa to that in Europe and in America. As I have come to anticipate in my interactions with foreigners, I learned that the Afrikaans knew a lot about America. They could discuss current American political campaigns knowledgeably. Neither the California couple nor I could reciprocate when talking about South Africa. In fact, like many Americans, I don’t know much about the politics of other countries.

On the way, we stopped at a little restaurant for lunch. Everyone had wraps, but the interesting thing was that an older Turkish woman sitting barefoot in front of the restaurant, made the bread for the wraps in front of us. She rolled out the dough into a thing large circle, and cooked it on an inverted wok over a charcoal fire. I had a traditional yogurt drink called “ayran,” and learned it comes from the local area.

At one point further on in our journey, we spoke about how to get by in France. All of us agreed that the French often do not respond to English speakers, especially in Paris. For the most part, I think the French pretend they don’t understand or speak English. The Afrikaans said they solved the problem by asking questions in Afrikaans when they traveled in France. They did this even though they can speak perfect English. The French almost always responded to the Afrikaans in English. However, if the Afrikaans asked their question first in English, the French would act like they did not understand, and would answer in French. So the lesson here, according to the Afrikaans, is to use some other language, for example, German, to start the conversations in France. Most French know some English, but because they resent both the British and the Americans, they don’t respond to them in English. I wonder if the strategy works. I’ll give it a try; I’ll ask questions in Hungarian, and that should do the trick.

On the trip home from Pamukale, our driver stopped as we drove through the town; the driver got out to hug and kiss an older woman walking nearby. When he returned to the van, I asked if he was from this town, and he told me yes, that woman was his mother. He asked if we would like to see his father’s business. He told us his father manufactures a drug that can help people loose or gain weight. So, off we went down a dirt road to see the factory. His father and a companion were sitting near a shack, their little farm building, and welcomed us warmly. The drug factory is a large tank of moving green water where the algae grow. A paddle wheel keeps the water circulating. They skim the algae out of the water and put it on drying racks, and then packages it in capsules. Our driver told us it is sold all over Turkey, and of course, we all had to try some. It was almost tasteless, and probably harmless and not very effective. But, the father said he lost 30 kilos (70 lbs.) taking his own medicine; you could not tell from looking as he was still quite a large around the waist.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

In the 1970’s and 1980’s, the German Archeological Institute excavated three places, Priene, Miletus, and Didyma. I visited them today. Like the trip to Pamukale, the same van driver took a couple from Chile and me to all three places. At each site, we got out and explored the ruins. Also, like the trip to Pamukale, I enjoyed talking to the couple form Chile greatly. They came to Turkey from a professional meeting in Stockholm, so we not only talked about our travels in both Turkey and Sweden, as well as in many other places. The man is a medical doctor specializing in pulmonary medicine; he and his wife have three daughters and a son. They were delightful, and seemed really interested in my stories.

The city of Priene covered a large area under the shadow of a large rocky mountain. As most of the ruined cities that I have seen, Priene sits high above the valley floor. The ruins are well mapped, and it is easy to know where you are in the city. The prominent features include a fine Greek theater, a Byzantine church, and a columned sanctuary of Athena.

Miletus, an even larger city, has a Roman bath, a columned temple to Apollo, and a large Roman theater. The difference between Roman and Greek theaters, I learned, is that the seats in the Roman theater do not go all the way down to the stage area. The Romans sat higher up, protected from the lions. The baths had an underground heating system and sophisticated plumbing.

The last stop on the tour was the incredibly large temple to Apollo at Didyma. The columns stand almost sixty feet high, and are at least six feet in diameter at the base. The columns are constructed with huge stone disks stacked on top of each other. There’s a hole in the center of each disk, and iron rods keep the disks in place. How people, without modern power tools and equipment, could handle such immense objects is hard to imagine, but as Archimedes said, “give me a long enough lever and I can move the world.”

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Halicarnassus is now called Bodrum. I have stopped here for just a couple of days on my way to Kas further down the coast. Bodrum looks like a Greek town with white buildings rising from the ocean up the mountains, and it was part of Greece for a long time. Many islands just off the coast of Turkey became part of Greece when the Ottoman Empire fell at the end of the First World War. The beach is beautiful, and there’s a castle protecting the harbor that dates back to the middle ages. Constructed in 1406, by the Knights of St. John, the Castle of St. Peter, stands on the ruins of the older Byzantine castle of St. Peter. Apparently knights from several European nations added towers to the castle. The English Tower, or the Lion Tower, has much to see including models of English ships, armor and weapons, and flags of various knights. Throughout the castle, stone-cut Coats of Arms decorate the walls.

The castle also houses interesting relics of the Turkish Underwater Archeology Museum. American scientists from the Institute of Nautical Archeology of Texas A&M University conducted salvage operations between 1984 and 1994. The oldest excavated shipwreck, dates back to the 14th century B.C.E., the late Bronze Age; the ship carried more than 20 tons of materials when it sank. These included ingots of copper, tin, and glass, ebony logs, many amphoras filled with resins, spices, foodstuff, ivory, and other valuables. One of the items on display is the only known gold scarab belonging to Queen Nefertiti of Egypt. It took twenty two thousand dives to excavate this one ship. A video shows the many temporary wooden structures that the scientists built on the rugged mountainside above the seacoast. These structures were used to house the people and conduct the land-based work.

The Mausoleum is another interesting site in Halicarnassus. It is supposed to have been one of the ancient “seven wonders of the world.” So far, I think I have visited about fifteen of the “seven wonders of the world.” Actually, I’ve been to only two on this trip, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, and now the Mausoleum of Maussollos here at Halicarnassus, I have to admit, not much is left to see at either, but the story of the Mausoleum is interesting.

The Persian Captain Vice-Regent Maussollos started building his own memorial tomb and his wife, Artemisia, completed it after his death in 353 B.C.E. The structure was about 150 feet tall with a stone chariot pulled by four horses on top. According to ancient writers, the sculptures and friezes were magnificent. The building was destroyed in an earthquake, and much of the rubble was used to fortify the Castle of St. Peter against the onslaught of Suleyman the Great in 1522. The British excavated some of the ruins in 1848, and got permission to remove frieze slabs, and other objects. The British Museum houses these today; I am glad that I visited the British Museum and German Museums before coming to Turkey, but I would now revisit those same museums with a much keener interest. From 1966 to 1977, Danish archeologists from the University of Aarhus, completed the existing excavation that includes the tomb chamber of Maussollos.
Transcribed at the site is a conversation Diogenes, the Greek philosopher, had with Maussollos when the two were old men. In the conversation, Diogenes asks why Maussollos built such an imposing tomb. After listening to Maussollos explain his greatness, Diogenenes says, “you may have been strong and handsome once, but now you are old and bald like me. Perhaps your tomb will give the people of Halicarnassus something to show off, but I can’t see what good it is to you, except if you claim that with all that marble on top of you, you have a heavier burden to bear than the rest of us.”

Philip Sternberg
Scoutmaster, Troop 1131