Sagalassos Antique City

Here is another antique city from our recent tour, but this one should be in the MUST SEE list, if you are interested in Roman and Greek archeological sites. It is located in the city of Burdur at the Toros mountain range at an altitute of 1450 -1700 m.

City is extensivly excavated Catholic University of Leuven of Belgium..At the entrance you are seeing an U shaped fountain dated from 1st century BC. Above the fountain Flavius Severianus Library from 3rd century restored beautifully..

Bir kaç hafta önce taptığımız antik şehirler turundan bir durak daha. Burası arkeoloji tutkunlarının mutlaka görülesi gereken yerler listesinde yer almalı. Şehir Burdur ilinde, Toros dağlarının eteklerinde 1450 - 1700 m yükseklikte kurulmuş.

Sagalassos, Belçika Leuven Katolik Üniversitesi arkeologları tarafından kazılıyor.Girişte ilk göreceğiniz yer MÖ 1 yüzyıldan kalma U şeklinde bir çeşme, üstünde ise son derece iyi restore edilmiş ve koruma amaçlı üstü kapatılmış, 3. yüzyıldan kalma Flavius Severianus Kütüphanesi. 

As always there is a beautiful and big theatre...

Her antik şehirde olduğu gibi güzel ve büyük bir tiyatrosu bulunuyor..

But the jewel of the city is the Fountain of Antonins built during 161 - 183. It is just amazing and what makes it special is that you can still cool yourself with its cold waters coming from the Toros mountains. It is enough to go there just to see an active Roman fountain...

Şehrin mücevheri ise kesinlikle 161 -183 yılları arasında yapılmış Antoninler çeşmesi. Muhteşem bir yapı ve onu son derece özel kılan şey ise, Toros dağlarından gelen buz gibi suyun hala akması. Sadece bu  bile çalışır durumdaki çeşmeyi görmek için  Sagalassos'a gitmeye değer..

 Check the waters flowing upper side of the fountain...

Üst kısımlardan akan suya dikkat edin...

 If you have time you should visit the Burdur museum to see the original statues of the fountain as well as other artifacts from the other ancient cities around Burdur region..It is a small and a very well designed museum..

Eğer zamanınız varsa, çeşmede bulunan orjinal heykelleri görmek için Burdur müzesini ziyaret etmeyi ihmal etmeyin. Burdur civarı antik kentlerden çıkan eserleri sergileyen müze küçük, iyi dizayn edilmiş ve gezilmesi çok rahat bir yer.

Red October

All these beautiful reds that come with October ( 5 kilos ) fit in to a small jar... Proudly present my one jar of sun dried pepper paste..

Ekim ayı ile beraber gelen bütün bu güzel kırmızılar ( 5 kilo) küçücük bir kavanoza sığdılar..Gururla bir adet güneşte kurutulmuş biber salçası kavanozumu sunarım...

Karaköy Bull Fights

 This past weekend, we went to see bull fights at Karakoy. It was a first for me as well as hubby. To tell you the truth I never gave much thought to bulls up to now but I realized that they were such magnificent creatures. Its no wonder they are the symbol of strength in so many cultures and mythology. Bull fights are a long held tradition in Turkey and they are a lot different and ironic to say but more humane than the ones in Spain as bulls are fighting with each other not with a human..Like all male species, they are pushing and tossing and usually dont critically injure each other.

Bu haftasonu Karaköy'de yapılan boğa güreşlerini izlemeye gittik. Hem benim hemde eşim için bir ilkti. Şu ana kadar boğalar üzerinde çok fazla kafa yormasam da, o gün onların ne kadar muhteşem yaratıklar olduğunu gördüm. Pek çok kültürde ve mitolojide gücün sembolü olduklarına şaşmamalı. Boğa güreşleri Türkiye'de uzun süredir var olan bir gelenek ve İspanya'dakinden çok farklı hatta ironik ama boğalar bir insan la değil , birbirleriyle güreştiği için deyim yerindeyse daha insancıl. Aslında yaptıkları erkek cinslerinin tümünde olduğu gibi birbirleriyle itişmek ve çok ciddi yaralanmaların olmadığı söyleniyor.

Rules are rather simple, if you ran away or become too excited and mount your opponent, you are losing.

Kurallar aslında oldukça basit, rakibinden kaçan ya da çok heyecanlanıp üstüne binmeye çalışan boğa yenik kabul ediliyor..

There are many fans of these fights as well as opponents and many heated debates between them are natural. Unfortunately I feel like I am standing no where in these arguments. I LOVE my dog, I LOVE my cat and I love all animals and I am so careful not to kill an ant or bug intentionally and dont hesitate to walk the extra mile if necessary but I eat meat. Eventhough I am trying to limit it for a few nights every week , I still see my relations with animals hypocritical. I wish we could all live in a peaceful world where not a single human or animal get hurt but I cant say that these fights are good and also I cant say that they are bad until I change myself....

Bu gösterilerin pek çok meraklısı olduğu gibi, pek çok karşı duranı da var ve bu konuda ateşli tartışmalar son derece olağan. Ne yazık ki bu tartışmalarda ben kendimi hiç bir yerde göremiyorum. Kedimi, köpeğimi, tüm hayvanları çok SEVİYORUM, küçücük bir böceği ya da karıncayı bilerek öldürmemek için, kırk takla atmaktan hiç üşenmiyorum ama et yiyorum.Her ne kadar et yemeklerini haftada bir kaç kez ile sınırlasam da, hayvanlarla olan ilişkimi hala ikiyüzlü olarak görüyorum. Keşke tek bir insanın ve hayvanın incinmediği bir dünyada yaşayabilseydik ama şu anda bu güreşler iyidir diyemeyeceğim gibi, kendimi değiştirene kadar, kötüdür de demekten uzağım..

Hierepolis Antique City

Pamukkale is one of the main tourist attractions in Turkey thanks to its cotton like hills formed due to hot water flowing down the cliff and carved this formation. Many local and foreign tourist love to walk on these white hills and pay dearly to enter the nearby ancient pool of the antique city..The columns inside the pool were from an earthquke in the 7th century.

 However our main purpose was to explore the ruins of the antique city of Hieropolis which is located near the white hills. Hieropolis founded around 190 BC and had always been a tourist attraction thruout the history thanks to its thermal waters. It was a healing center and its hot waters used as spa since 2nd century BC.

 The photo below is from the latrines of the city. It's an interesting thing how they loved to chat and relieve themselves at the same time...

 Most magnificient building is the theather. It was constructed in 129, and Italian archeologist are working on it since 1957. It had a capacity of 9500 and known with its gladiator fights..
Although it was almost the end of September, the weather was so hot and as I was experiencing the initial stages of a heatstroke, I couldnt take some decent and detailed photos of the theatre. I realize that lately we are dealing with unexpected harsh weathers in our travels. Maybe its time to make some offerings to Hermes, the protector of the travellers. Afterall antique cities are THE places where I can find him..

Sea Glasses

I always like sea glasses without knowing particularly why and collected a lot of them during my summers and now winters at the beach..I think I found the answer when I read this piece..

'…The shard of cobalt blue sea glass you’ve just found was once a bottle until it outlived its original purpose and was cast into the sea. There, amids the tumult of elements, raging waters dense with salt the bottle churned against rock and reef breaking it into ever smaller pieces.

Smoothed by the very silica from which the bottle was created by man deploying technology, its edges and surface being reclaimed bit by tiny bit until all that remains is a piece of glass the size of a finger nail, smoothed by years of ebbing tides which appears at your feet. Why do we as humans discard the original bottle yet cherish the tiny fragment of its former self? Does knowing what it was mitigate or enhance the delight in finding it? As someone whose own efforts sometimes pluck the sensual soft shards of gren, aqua,amethyst, blue, cobalt, once clear and now frosted glass from ocean beaches far and wide I know that what I cherish is the connection to the impossible journey that brought this ‘’treasure’’ to me. That it still remains and is now in my hand is chance of discovery and infinite possibility..'

Above paragraphs are from this book. LOVE the name and the book.

As for the above photo,I couldnt trace the original source so dont know which talented photographer took it.

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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