Before this though, we made our way to the (supposed) home of Mother Mary, certainly a sacred site for both Chrisitians and Muslims alike (the Koran recognizes the Virgin Mary as a virgin mother of the prophet Jesus Christ). Thousands of people make their way here every year to pray, collect holy water from the local spring, and place prayers or personal messages to God. Here are the highlights of our holy visit.
This is supposedly the home of Mother Mary; it was determined the walls of the home were from the 4th century AD, but the foundation was from right around the death of Jesus Christ. But how would they know it was her home? A German bedridden woman named Catherina Emmerich had visions in the early 1890s, seeing Mother Mary in front of the home with a natural freshwater spring nearby. To the archeologists' amazement, her visions were nearly spot on.
This is the holy freshwater spring very near Mary's home. These waters were blessed by the Vatican in the 1950s, and people ever since have filled their water bottles with the holy water to bring back to their families.
Mother Mary always sits just outside her home, blessing all those who visit her. Such a tranquil and holy site.
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And here my friends, is the city of Ephesus, the product of many a Greek or Roman leader, none more famous than Alexander the Great, who spent the most of his own fortune to move the city from its primary seaside location to an area farther inland to compensate for the alluvial deposit issue.
Remember yesterday's basilica? Here is another one today. Instead of yesterday's temple turned church, this was the Roman courthouse turned church. The front of the building currently has the altar which used to be the bench for the justices. Heidi also explained that all the traditional Roman column designs (ionic and doric) are present here in some fashion, and we'll see why that is in a few moments.
As with every Roman city thus far, this is the bouleuterion, the city council's meeting house. Though this building seats 1700 people, the Boule only had about 500 members max (there were concerts held here during one month out of the year dedicated to Artemis, the Greek goddess of chastisty and the moon). The stage behind the D shaped intention was the place where Boule members discussed the laws up for vote, though they did not have the final say as to what became law.
The Supreme Court did. These justices met in the structure on the left of this panorama known as the Temple of Vestia. On the right is the Temple of Diaroma, the 13 Roman goddess tasked with protecting the city of Rome from outside threats. Since this is adjacent to the Bouleterion, this series of structures is a wonderful balance between the public voice the city, the administrative voice of the city, and the goddess responsible for taking care of it all. What a scene!
This avenue, known as the Embollus (meaning downhill), was the shopping district for the wealthiest citizens of the city. On either side of the street sat numerous shops where shopkeepers sold whatever goods they could while living just above their businesses. Plus, dozens of statues lined the street with noble dignataries that had donated funds to rebuilding the city or had done other great works for the betterment of Ephesus (all of which were listed beneath their statue). Alexander the Great is also featured here, with two massive pillars with his engraving at the top of the hill.
Have you noticed that a lot of these structures did not have the classic marble structure? The reason.... The daath of the city... By 400 AD, Rome was on its last legs and Ephesus was losing funding rapidly. To make up for this, city officials recycled old piece of colomn, seats from the Bouleuterion and theater, and many other places to replace the columns that had been destroyed by earthquake activity. This fountain, dedicated to Roman Emperor Thadgen, was no different. The most interesting part of this fountain was the baskeball sized sphere in the center of the structure above the reflection pool. This may signify the Romans had some idea the earth was round, though there is not much evidence that this idea spread past Ephesus until much later.
You can tell this boulevard was for the wealthy... Just look at these mosaic sidewalks! Just beautiful!
Yup... That's exactly what you think it is... Beneath the seats is a trough of running water, constantly bringing the excrement and smell away from the Latreen. Plus, another trough in front was also full of water for "wiping" purposes (they think they used sponges from the Aegean Sea for this duty)... Had to bring it up.
Any college student has sit in a great library once in a while! This is the Library of Celsus, a nobleman who gave his entire collection of 40,000 books to his son at the time of his death, so they had to be placed somewhere. This library was dedicated to Athena, the goddess of wisdom, for seemingly obvious reasons. The etchings carved into the face of the one story building (though it looks two stories, it was only built this way to make the building look taller than it really was) are scenes of Roman god and goddess stories, all in amazing detail.
And here my friends, is the Agora. There is one stiry associated with this open public square. One vestal virgin assigned to work in the Supreme Court was found guilty of losing her virginity, breaking the deal she had struck with the city. As punishment, she was sentenced to death by live burial, all of which occurred in the public square for all to see. This way, no other women under the same vow would think of losing their virginity, and thus their life.
Likely the most impressive structure in the whole city is the ancient theater, a 25,000 seat arena complete with Romanesque arches on the sides to support the addition of a few thousand more seats. Here, gladiator fights, animal fights, speeches, and even modern day music festivals were held in this building, which had been constructed during the Greek rule of the city, hense the mostly open setup (until the Romans later added a wall and roof that has since deteriated). Finally, just as the Statue of Liberty does in New York, this theater was the first thing sailors from the Aegean would see when they docked at Ephesus, showing off the city's strength as a port and economic hub.
This children's game also has some strange relationships with the life of Jesus, leading some to believe this was a secret symbol of Christians living in the city during the period when Christianity was outlawed by Rome. The Greek letters above the wheel are also the first letters of the English translation of "Jesus, the Lord our Savior"; strangely enough, each of these letters can be traced inside the wheel if you can visualize it properly. How sneaky!
Here is one of the seven wonders of the ancient world that we got to visit, the Temple of Artemis. Even though there is only one and a half pillars standing inside a swamp, this structure used to house 127 massive pillars surrounding the extravegant statues of the Greek goddess, as sanctioned by Alexander the Great in 333 BC (it was intended to be the most beautiful structure in the world, as it was for some time). Once Paganism was killed by the Romans after 400 AD, every emperor thereafter took a piece of the Temple, moving them to other locations within the empire. The most famous of these moves is there pillars to the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (which we saw more than a week ago).
This is another fine example of the Turks notion that once a piece of ground is considered holy, it must always be treated as such. The building with the dome structure is a local mosque, the arched building on the right is a christian church dedicated to Saint John, all within sight of the Pagan temple. A once in the world shot for sure.
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Though the art of carpet weaving seems to be a dying art in Turkey, these folks in a rather large weaving school are trying to reverse this trend. Here, weavers are making rugs (this one a custom Turkish map as you can see) made from wool that has been strung out into about three foot long strips. When the weaver is begins the weave, she must first tightly string together strips of cotton line to provide a backbone for the knots of each row to grab on too. In this form, the weaver ties the yarn into knots (using either a single or double know technique) and follows her pattern row by row, but more on this later.
Authentic silk comes from the cocoons of the silk worm native to East Asia but have since been relocated to both Bursa and here for silk carpet making. After the worms have been raised and are ready to turn into sill moths and lay more eggs, these cocoons are collected with the adult moth still inside and placed in this tub of boiling water. This kills the moth and releases some of the silk from the coccon, which is then rolled onto spools (near Andrew's face), and can then be processed to create a finished silk product.
Please trust me, the value of these carpets are more than the value of my tuition for college and grad school, and that is no joke. The bottom photo is a picture of one silk rug that is worth more than $50,000, a massive chunk of change for a piece of (amazingly detailed) carpet.
And for the HIGHLIGHT!
Abby's presentation at the Bouleuterion about the city of Ephesus and St. Paul's impact on the region was quite magnificent, so big thumbs up for you!
*there were more highlights, but they were not the most kosher... Ask us if you must.
ECGT signing off!
I am Adrianas grandmother and I.feel.as if I'm there with her. The pictures and your discriptions are truly amazing.the wonderful memories all of u are making will be with you all forever.Thank you for sharing all
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