Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Selçuk-Efes
I'm now back from another weekend getaway, this time to the town of Selçuk and the neighboring ruins of the ancient city of Efes, or as its better known - Ephessus.
We arrived into town itself after about 8 hours of travelling and lucked out getting into a pansiyon owned and run by two of the nicest Turks we've met so far. The owner, Derviş by name, and his brother Osman, who runs a carpet shop, were incredibly friendly to us and their pansiyon is beautifully decorated by many items from Derviş's former occupation as a carpenter. His delightful mother cooked us a great dinner and we retired the night going to his friend's restaurant for nargile and çiğ köfte (a raw meat and cracked wheat concoction eaten with lettuce). The town of Selçuk is actually a small wonder. Ephessus is the biggest tourist attraction outside of Istanbul, and one would think that the town would succoumb to economic pressures and sell out property to large hotel chains much like other lesser tourist sites have. Yet this town has maintained its cultural integrity by only offering a clutch of nice pansiyons, thus making it unaccomodating to large tour groups who now opt to stay in slightly farther away cities like Izmir and Kuşadası.
The town itself has a few historical sites, most prominently the ruins of the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist. This former basilica is currently a very active archeological site, as we saw many workers on hand while we visited. It was certainly a massive church which is believed to have three large domes and several different compartments.
Just up the street is Isa Bey Camii, a 14th century mosque that is also undergoing heavy renovation due to earthquakes. Restoration of mosques is a much different process than churches in Turkey. The Churches are to be preserved as historic sites and with as much of the original material in place as possible. Mosques for the most part are to be restored so that they may continue functioning, thus much grander and detailed restoration and rebuilding takes place. Thus this mosque while in a very old frame, had a very modern inside. We also met with the imam there who watches over the place while it is being restored. He gave us a short history of the mosque and was quite pleasant to talk to.
The ruins of Ephessus are quite massive. Its hard to expain all that is there without pictures because there is so much. The history of this city is also vast. It is one of the Seven Churches of Asia talked about in the Book of Revelations and it and its surroundings were at one point or another home to St. Paul (of Tarsus), John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, and perhaps John of Patmos (supposed writer of the Book of Revelations). The most impressive of the ruins are the Theater which seats up to 20,000 people and still plays host to music festivals and plays in the summertime and the Library of Celsius whose massive façade is incredibly well preserved.
The last stop on our trip was to Meryemana. This house about 7km from Efes is believed by many to be the last residence of the Virgin Mary. It sits on a forested mountain side far out of the surrounding civilization. Today it is a simple two room chapel/sanctuary. The story behind it goes as such. A woman in about the 3rd century A.D. who bore the stigmata had visions of Mary and a house. She recorded these visions and descriptions of the house. A century or two later, a monk studied these visions and set out about Anatolia searching for the house. Ephessus and its vicinity makes a lot of sense theologically because Jesus imparted the care of his mother to John the Evangelist who was assigned Asia Minor as a province of evangelism and is also known to have lived and died there.
A busy weekend it was. We're still undecided what to do next weekend, but there has beena request for a report of what I'm doing academically here and I think it would be a good idea for a column later this week.
Görüşörüz
We arrived into town itself after about 8 hours of travelling and lucked out getting into a pansiyon owned and run by two of the nicest Turks we've met so far. The owner, Derviş by name, and his brother Osman, who runs a carpet shop, were incredibly friendly to us and their pansiyon is beautifully decorated by many items from Derviş's former occupation as a carpenter. His delightful mother cooked us a great dinner and we retired the night going to his friend's restaurant for nargile and çiğ köfte (a raw meat and cracked wheat concoction eaten with lettuce). The town of Selçuk is actually a small wonder. Ephessus is the biggest tourist attraction outside of Istanbul, and one would think that the town would succoumb to economic pressures and sell out property to large hotel chains much like other lesser tourist sites have. Yet this town has maintained its cultural integrity by only offering a clutch of nice pansiyons, thus making it unaccomodating to large tour groups who now opt to stay in slightly farther away cities like Izmir and Kuşadası.
The town itself has a few historical sites, most prominently the ruins of the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist. This former basilica is currently a very active archeological site, as we saw many workers on hand while we visited. It was certainly a massive church which is believed to have three large domes and several different compartments.
Just up the street is Isa Bey Camii, a 14th century mosque that is also undergoing heavy renovation due to earthquakes. Restoration of mosques is a much different process than churches in Turkey. The Churches are to be preserved as historic sites and with as much of the original material in place as possible. Mosques for the most part are to be restored so that they may continue functioning, thus much grander and detailed restoration and rebuilding takes place. Thus this mosque while in a very old frame, had a very modern inside. We also met with the imam there who watches over the place while it is being restored. He gave us a short history of the mosque and was quite pleasant to talk to.
The ruins of Ephessus are quite massive. Its hard to expain all that is there without pictures because there is so much. The history of this city is also vast. It is one of the Seven Churches of Asia talked about in the Book of Revelations and it and its surroundings were at one point or another home to St. Paul (of Tarsus), John the Evangelist, the Virgin Mary, and perhaps John of Patmos (supposed writer of the Book of Revelations). The most impressive of the ruins are the Theater which seats up to 20,000 people and still plays host to music festivals and plays in the summertime and the Library of Celsius whose massive façade is incredibly well preserved.
The last stop on our trip was to Meryemana. This house about 7km from Efes is believed by many to be the last residence of the Virgin Mary. It sits on a forested mountain side far out of the surrounding civilization. Today it is a simple two room chapel/sanctuary. The story behind it goes as such. A woman in about the 3rd century A.D. who bore the stigmata had visions of Mary and a house. She recorded these visions and descriptions of the house. A century or two later, a monk studied these visions and set out about Anatolia searching for the house. Ephessus and its vicinity makes a lot of sense theologically because Jesus imparted the care of his mother to John the Evangelist who was assigned Asia Minor as a province of evangelism and is also known to have lived and died there.
A busy weekend it was. We're still undecided what to do next weekend, but there has beena request for a report of what I'm doing academically here and I think it would be a good idea for a column later this week.
Görüşörüz
