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Sunday, September 30, 2012

Laodikeia - Denizli

We are back from our short trip where we visited couple antique cities in Denizli and Burdur. As you can easily guess archeological digs requires lots of time, patience, and a lot of long term financing. Turkey has so many Greek and Roman sites as well as stone age settlements but very few of them rather lucky in terms of financing .For the last couple years Laodikeia antique city in Denizli is one of the lucky ones thanks to the financial support of Denizli municipality. While there was nothing substantial to see few years earlier, it is now one of the hot zones in archeology world.

Laodikia established around third century BC and dedicated to Laodike, the wife of the founder of the city,Seleukos King Antiokhos Its commercial activities and especially its wool and textile industries made it one of the wealtiest cities of its time. It was also home to one of the oldest Christian communities and ranked among the Seven Churches of Asia. One of the well known visitors of the city was Cicero. Its been known that famous statesman and preacher came to this city in 50 BC and dealt with some legal problems of the city.






Floor of the temple covered with glass so it is possible to see below which was the sacred room of the temple and it was used as the archive of the nearby church during the Christianity era. It was rather scary to walk on it..However hubby and his identical twin brother were mischievous as always...









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6 comments:

  1. Fabulous photos - thank you. How far from Datca is this place?

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  2. So cool. Momma loves those digs, etc
    Benny & Lily

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  3. Wow I had never heard of this place.... the sights are beautiful and i'd be terrified to walk on the glass floor!

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  4. Wonderful! One of the reason I like your blog is this one: I find out about unusual locations, somehow out of the touristic track (at least the foreign tourists), and I look for them on internet. So, I learn a lot of things about Turkey, a country which I like very much. Thanks, Turquoise Diaries!

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