Turkey: Ephesus

Ephesus

Celcus Library

We spent most of May 31 in Ephesus.  This day is one of the days I most looked forward to when planning this part of the trip.  Ephesus was one of the most significant cities of the ancient world with its 'Golden Age' of prominence running from 133BC until 262AD when a major earthquake began the city's decline.  It was a slow decline, however, as the city still held a seat of importance in the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire until about 890AD.  The real death nail for the city was the harbor filling in with silt from the river to a point where it could not longer be used.  The Aegean Sea is now 5 miles from where the ancient city was.

The Great Theater mentioned in the Book of Acts Ch 19

On these streets walked Cleopatra, Marc Anthony, Roman Emporer Hadrian and of course the Apostle Paul, the Apostle John, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.  This site has been excavated for over 100 years but only about 15% has been uncovered.  There is plenty of work left to do, but what has been done already really is quite impressive.  The Celcus Library and The Great Theater are two of the more famous ruins in Ephesus but there were many other interesting things about this place.




History of Ephesus

Placards at entry outlining history of Ephesus....

City Location

The city itself actually moved several times.  Located on the west coast of modern day Turkey, the first Ephesus was situated in the position below (from where I took the picture).  The sea is over to the right and the view is to the south.  The city then moved to the north part of the the smaller hill directly across (the side that is showing).  Finally, the city that is mentioned in the Bible was quite large with the main city political offices, temples, theaters, stadiums, and agoras (open spaces for commerce etc) in the valley between the small hill and the larger mountain.

At its height, the city had a population of 250,000 with the poorer sections of the city near where I took the picture above.  In addition, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World stood in the green space in the picture above.  It was the temple to the Goddess Artemis and people from around the world would make pilgrimages to see that temple and worship Artemis.  The only 'Wonder' of the ancient world that still stands are the pyramids in Egypt.  Most of the columns of the Artemis Temple were used to build the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (see previous post on Istanbul!)

Read Acts Chapter 19 to learn about the events that happened because Ephesus was becoming more and more Christian even in the time of Paul.  The silversmiths and other Artemis idol merchants didn't like that so much and started a near riot as a result....

It is a bit hard to see the relief map below but it gives a good sense of where ancient city stood.  The mound on the right with the white dotted line is the larger mountain in the distance of the picture above.  To the left is the smaller mountain.  The solid white lines are current day roads.  

The ancient city starts near the top of the picture (which is east) were the white road juts into the valley between the two mountains.  That's where the buses dropped us off to start the tour.  In that area was the government center of the city as well as a smaller commercial section (called an Agora) that serviced the government.  Then the road leads down the valley (west) to the Celcus Library and then turns north to the large Theater (mentioned in the Book of Acts) before heading west again on the road that led to the port.  

In the picture below you can see the blue dotted line is where the water and the port used to come up right near the city.  You can see a little horseshoe shape a bit above the blue dotted line which is where the Theater is.  

Below is a visual of what ancient Ephesus looked like (looking from east where the buses dropped us off to the west).  The buildings around the small temple were the government buildings.  The larger temple to the left was to Emporer Domitian (though some archaeologists are now making the claim it was to Emporer Titus).

Government Center

We started the tour in this area around the government buildings.

The first thing our guide showed us was Christian graffiti.  The Greek letters refer to Jesus and by taking those letters and laying them on top of each other you get the wheel looking mark which was a sign of Christians early on.  The fish was also a sign for Christians.  It was a bit like a secret handshake.  Many had walking sticks back then and if they stopped to talk with someone they didn't know they would make an arc in the dirt.  If the person wasn't a Christian they wouldn't notice and would do nothing.  But if they were a Christian they would make a similar arch which would create markings that looked like a fish.

The government walkway.  To the left was the open space with the little temple.  Walking about 1 mile on this road (and curving a bit to the right) you would end up at the ancient port.  To the right were the government buildings.  This walkway was enclosed during ancient times....

Our guide talked about the different kinds of columns and how to tell which was from the various periods.  I didn't write fast enough to get the names of the columns but basically the more ornate the top of the column, the more recent the column was.  The less ornate, the older the column was....

Looking back up the walkway with the open space now on the right...

One of the key government buildings was the Bouleuterion which was like city hall where many political debates took place.  These were built when Greeks ruled but as Rome took over and government changed, many of these kinds of buildings turned into theaters.  This one could hold 1,800 people.  See the sketch diagram below on what it looked like in its glory years with ruins below that...

The white marble on the lower seating is original.  Often marble from Roman ruins was taken to build other things or shipped to other places depending on what Empire was in control and whether the city was in decline.

Lion feet marking the stairwells...

Next door to this theater-like structure was another government building called the Prytaneum.  There was an eternal fire that burned there and an official whose specific job was to make sure the fire never went out because it was a bad omen if that happened.  So, this official apparently was paid quite well to insure that the fire kept going.  There was a practical reason for this fire as well; it is where the common people would come if they needed hot coals to start a fire for cooking at their own home.  The statues of Artemis in the Ephesus museum were actually found in this set of ruins relatively unscathed.

The view from the top of the government 'theater' (see picture below).  The harbor would have been right out there in ancient times but 2000 years later you can't even see the sea as it is now 5 miles away!  What looks like water or a river in this picture is actually just marshy wet land.  I imagine this is what New Orleans will be like someday with the Mississippi River pushing the city 5 miles inland when it used to sit right on the coast.  Maybe modern methods can delay that but if things were ever left alone there is little doubt cities like New Orleans would meet the same fate as Ephesus (as far as their harbor is concerned).

Processional Way

I found the 'Processional Way' diagram fascinating and a useful reference point later in the day when I took the pictures overlooking the full area of Ephesus.  This map marks the processional route that people would take as a part of worshiping Artemis.  This route is also the one taken by the protesters in Acts 19 from the Artemis temple to the Theater.  Notice the visual of statue of Artemis in the lower right corner of placard...that statue is now in a museum in London as British archaeologists were the first to find Ephesus.  The bust of Artemis is actually a bunch of bull testicles as that was thought to be a sign of fertility in the day!

Pathway heading down from the government office area.  The street dead ends about 100 meters from this point.  To the left was the huge Domitian (or Titus) Temple.  Turning right led to the street which had the public bath, other monuments and ultimately led to the primary commercial area (large Agora) as well as the Theater.   You can see burrowed into the mountain the area where the super rich people lived in the city (white buildings on lower slopes of mountain).

Temple of Domitian

If you walk down the street pictured above and turn left you would see an open plaza with the Temple of Domitian.  This temple had a MASSIVE statue which was 7 meters high and could be seen from miles away.  I think that is one reason archaeologists are thinking this might have been a temple dedicated to Titus.  There is very little left other than a few pillars so you have to use your imagination (though you can see an artists rendition in the placard below).

Domitian persecuted Christians and was the emperor who exiled the Apostle John to Patmos.  But he was hated by pretty much everyone.  Roman Emperors are considered Gods upon death but Domitian loved himself so much that he had temples built to himself as a God while he was alive.  Rome hated him so much that after he was murdered they tried to erase him out of their history books by taking his name off monuments etc.

One interesting thing we learned as well is that not every city could build temples to Emperors   They had to be chosen and it was considered a great honor + increased the prestige of the city.  Ephesus was chosen 4 times which helped elevate it to one of the leading cities of the ancient world.

What's left of Domitian Temple

Paul in Ephesus

One of the areas that Paul likely spoke was in this area near the Domitian Temple.  The Bible says that he would speak from approximately 11am in the morning (5 hours after sunrise) until about 5pm at night.

Paul spent more time in Ephesus than in any other city (time estimates vary but it was around 2 1/2 to 3 years).  He started in the synagogues but when he was no longer welcome there he went to the streets. The Book of Acts mentions as well that he went to a place called Tyrannus after he was no longer welcomed in the synagogue.  This place was actually a building in Ephesus, not a different city.  That building has not been found.  No synagogue has been found either...but there is still 85% of the city to uncover so maybe my grandkids will get to see those things ;)

I could also imagine Apollos speaking in this area and imagined Aquila and Priscilla maybe meeting him in this area (and talking with him about being baptized with the Holy Spirit).

This relief is a well preserved depiction of Nike that once adorned the Hercules Gate....

The Hercules Gate (aka Heracles Gate)

This gate separated the government section from the commercial section of the city.

And this is the awesome view from that gate down the street to the Celsus library.  The road curves to the right which is where the larger commercial Agora is located as well as the Great Theater.  When walking this road, you cannot help but think about the history of this place and who walked here.  

My favorite place so far in our travels was the Stairs of Teaching on the southern wall of the temple in Jerusalem   I loved it because there is zero question that Jesus stood on those steps and taught the people of the day.  That is where the events of Pentacost happened as well.  I don't think anything will 'top' the Stairs of Teaching for me (as far as historical sites).  

But walking down this street was my second favorite 'tour site' experience.  There is no question the Apostle Paul walked this road many times...as did the Apostle John....as did Mary....and from world history Cleopatra and Marc Anthony as well as a number of Roman Emperors.  

The library was built a few years after the time of the Apostles but everything else was there.  The baths.  The monuments.  The latrines.  The rich people's homes on the left side of the street.

As you walk down the street the entire length has these pedestals with statues of important people from the city...senators, doctors, great actors, great businessmen.  But only the one below had any kind of statue on it now.  It is of a physician named Alexander...

 Heading down the road we saw....

 Hydreion Fountain...

Memmius Monument...

Trajan Fountain

Romans loved their fountains as it was a way to express how rich and powerful they were...they served no practical use other than beauty.  This fountain would have been pretty spectacular in its day as Trajan was Emporer for about 20 years after Domitian and apparently was regarded highly.  He also left the Christians alone and they started to flourish in Ephesus...

One interesting thing about the Trajan fountain is that only one foot of the large statue of Trajan remains at the site along with a globe he was resting on (symbolizing world domination).  Why is that interesting?  The globe is round.  Apparently a few people had ideas before Columbus that the world was round....

The Varius Bath House... (for both the rich and the poor citizens of Rome)

This statue in the bath house is actually a wealthy Christian woman who funded a major renovation of the bath houses (see placard above)....

Temple of Hadrian...

The Latrines...

The Octagon (Tomb of Cleopatra's Sister....murdered at her order)

One thing I have learned about ancient history is that the kings, queens, and emporers were pretty much tyrants.  They routinely consolidated power by killing all their siblings to insure no one from their family could try to claim the crown.  We learned in Istanbul that the Ottoman Empire Sultans did the same thing.  

These people were ruthless and really lived pathetic lives of backstabbing (literally) and basically couldn't trust anyone.  It may sound great to be a king but when you live in such a state that servants, military people or even your own family have a motivation and opportunity in many cases to kill you I would think that it would be a miserable way to live.  

This tomb is a replica of the Lighthouse in Alexandria and housed the remains of Cleopatra's sister.  She didn't agree with merging the Roman and Egyptian empires as she felt Rome would swallow Egypt (which it did).  Cleopatra didn't like that and ordered her killed.  In those times if someone clung to the statue of Artemis in the Temple of Artemis, people out for blood had to let you go.  But Marc Anthony didn't care about that and had her dragged out of the temple and killed.  Sad.  

Mosaic SIDEWALKS just outside the super rich people's homes...

The Terrace Houses (the super rich homes)

This area is under a large enclosure and is quite impressive.

The first home was the largest.  Each home had some kind of interior atrium that was open to the sun.  The rooms of each home were around this atrium.  The halls surrounding the atrium as well as the rooms had roofs on them.  The light came into the rooms from the light of the atrium.  But these people were so rich they had private baths, private toilets, and oil lamps for light at night.

This area is an active archaeological site and might be the largest jigsaw puzzle in the world as they try to piece together marble sidings etc.

Reportedly, the owner of this particular home who would have walked through that door was a high priest of some pagan God.  The home had a basilica that served as a place of worship as well as a place to host gatherings etc.

Basilica...

Side room of basilica...

 Basilica + sideroom...

Looking down to the atrium and hallway of another home in this area (there were 8 of them)

Ancient graffiti...

On the walls of the rooms the Romans would plaster the walls and then paint images...sometimes erotic, sometimes simple, but often times the rooms would promote that which the owner thought important.  Our guide said the first picture showed theater actors who were popular at the time and said "These were like the Justin Bieber posters of the day"  The second and third picture (with the ladies working) are of great thinkers like Socrates and Plato indicating that the owner of that home was highly educated.

The great thinkers....

Popular theater characters of the day...

Ornate mosaics (the lion with a rams head)

The owner of this home appreciated the arts...

Black and white mosaic tiles were popular in the 1st and 2nd century AD...

Neptune mosaic...

House at the top of the hill was impressive was well...

The earthquake in 262 AD impacted these homes significantly, but most were rebuilt.  There was another earthquake, however, within 100 years of the 262 AD earthquake and that made people abandoning these homes.  By the 5th century this area of the town started being converted for commercial endeavors and by the 7th century this was the 'handcraft' quarters with mills and things like marble cutting studios being housed here.

But the excavations for the most part have rebuilt the homes as they would have been during the glory days of Ephesus...

 View from the top of the Terrace Houses (the harbor would have been down and to the left)...

 Pathway to the Theater (zoomed shot from the top of the Terrace Houses)

Hadrian's Gate

This gate is at the bottom of the Terrace houses.  The Celcus Library was through the gate and to the left.  The pathway directly in front led to the Theater...

Looking back through Hadrian's Gate to the larger mountain with the Terrace House structures in the building to the left.

 Looking back up the street we walked down.  Terrace House structure on the right.  Latrines, fountains, bath house were all on the left and at the top of the street was the Hercules Gate.  A 180 turn from this position has you looking at the signature building in Ephesus, the Celsus Library

The Celsus Library 

The Celsus library was the 3rd largest library in the ancient world behind Alexandria and Rome.  The 'books' of this time period were scrolls.  Our guide called this a University in all but name as people from around the world came to study here.

Jewish graffiti...a menorah carved into the steps of the library...

 Gate leading from the library into the major commercial area of the city (the Agora....which we would call a "Mall" these days)

 The Agora, the Commercial Market

The pillars here would have been used to create a covered walkway for customers.  The shops would have been in that area to the right...

The open area in front of the shops where people would gather, sporting events would happen etc...

In this area was a large sundial for the people of Ephesus to tell time with.  That sundial is in the Ephesus Museum now.

Another side of the Agora which also would have had shops lining it.....

The picture below is from the opposite side of the Agora looking back toward the Celcus Library and the Terrace Houses (white / shiny structure in the distance).

The Great Theater of Ephesus

This is the Theater mentioned in the Book of Acts Chapter 19.  As noted from the placards below, before the Romans built their stadium for proper gladiator contests and other blood sports, this Theater was specially retrofitted to allow for such contests.

But primarily it was a place for the arts and a place where large political discussions took place for the public.

Info on placards around the Theater....

Inside the Theater...

We have a member of our tour who acts as the Apostle Paul.  He spent about 20 minutes verbalizing the book of Ephesians and also talking about the parts of the book of Acts that mention Ephesus.  I laughed when he started mocking people participating in the near riot in support of Artemis at this theater.  They were chanting something about Artemis loudly for about 2 hours and he started yelling that chant.  It would have been pretty annoying, but I must say for anyone to chant like that for 2 hours shows some passion.

He also talked about the great story in Acts where people who didn't believe in Jesus saw how Paul was healing people in Jesus' name....so they tried to do the same thing to gain prestige (even though they didn't believe in Jesus)....and as a result the demon said "I know Jesus.  I know Paul.  But who are you?" and proceeded to beat them up badly.  That event caused a revival in the city as people started repenting and burning scrolls and other pagan items that were worth the equivalent in today's dollars of $10,000,000.

The archeologists took nearly all the white marble found in this theater area and made one whole section look like the original Theater with marble from that theater.....

The Theater could hold 25,000 people after the Romans had expanded it.   The Theater was one of the largest theaters in the world at the time including a stage which had 3 stories.

From the stairs of the theater looking down the road which led to the port. 

Ephesus was so rich during its Golden Era (1st and 2nd Century AD) that it this street was LIGHTED at night.  Very rare in the ancient world....

 The Church of Mary

This church was one of the largest early churches and for 3 months in the summer of 431AD leaders of the church debated elements of the faith.  There was one leader at the time who was trying to make the case that Jesus was just a man and that Mary was therefore not the Mother of God.  The church voted against his argument at this council and stayed true to the Gospel accounts of who Jesus is.

Turkish Rugs

After leaving Ephesus we headed to lunch at a carpet factory where we learned all about Handmade Turkish Rugs.

We even got to tie a few double knots...

AJ is holding his cheeks here to keep this lady from pinching his cheeks (which she had just done).

She gave him a smooch as many other Turkish women had done over the past 10 days!

AJ was fascinated (as were all of us) with how silk thread is made.  It takes A LOT of cocoons to make even the simplest silk thread.

A rug depicting the Ephesus Theater in its glory days...

Over 10,000 rugs for sale here...

Including this flying carpet (lame salesman's joke as the guy was spinning the last carpet of the show)...

Our favorite carpet was a 100% silk carpet about the size of the big one in the middle above.  It was really an amazing carpet that changed color as the sales people rotated it around.  But, since it was $34,000 (you read that correctly), we decided to pass on it.

 Basilica of John (where the Apostle John was buried)

Storks like pillars for nests...

Placard showing what the church looked like in its heyday...

Tomb of John...

Looking down into the crypt area....

Stairs leading down to the crypt....

Example of archeologists taking the original marble they found during excavations (the top part and dark part of the column) and then creating a mold for the rest of the pillar (the whiter part)...

The baptismal font...

And finally what has to be the lamest tourist site in Turkey...

The Artemision (The Temple of Artemis)

Once one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, all this site now boasts is this drawing, a bit of a swamp, and 1 pillar of the original 127 pillars in the temple (most of which were used to build Hagia Sophia in Istanbul).

And that one pillar wasn't even a whole pillar!  It was small segments connected together to form 1 pillar in the place where the Temple used to stand.  I was just thankful we saw this at the end of the day when we were all ready to head back to the hotel.  It was pretty lame, especially the people around the area trying to sell tourist stuff based on the Temple of Artemis.  I actually thought about the story in Acts Chapter 19 as I realized people are STILL trying to make a living out of selling stuff revolving around the pagan God Artemis.

For me, the most interesting part of this site is just thinking about how important it used to be but how desolate and barren it now is.  I actually got that feeling throughout our time in Ephesus.  Here was this great city with so much power and so much wealth and so much influence....reduced to rubble and now simply a tourist attraction with rubble pieced back together.  Oh how the mighty and proud fall!

But then I thought of John and Paul and others who served the Lord Jesus Christ in this town and throughout this area.  As they humbly served Jesus, the seed they planted continued to grow despite persecution until the Empire who hung our Lord upon the Cross bowed down to Him who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  While the Empires of that time are gone and the Emperors confined to pages of history, the Carpenter from Galilee continues to mold this world toward His Will, giving each of us the free will to choose.

One way or another every knee will bow to Him, the believers and the unbelievers and someday all will know He is exactly who the Bible says He is.  Have you made your choice?

All Glory To Jesus Christ.  This day was a wonderful and exhilarating day in Ephesus.  Til next time, God Bless....