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.

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..

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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Knidos Light House

Yesterday's mission was to climb the Knidos Light House..My dear cousin Eda and her fiance Emrah were with us.. This light house constructed in 1931 at the farmost point of Anatolia towards the Mediterranean Sea and also at the border between Mediterranean and Aegean Seas..

Dünkü görevimiz Knidos fenerine tırmanmaktı. Sevgili kuzenim Eda ve nişanlısı Emrah bizimle birlikteydi. 1931 yılında inşa edilen fener, Anadolu'nun Akdeniz'e uzanan en uç noktasında yer almakta, aynı zamanda Akdeniz ve Ege Denizi arasındaki sınır noktasını oluşturmaktadır..

It was a pretty hot day and we started to ascend slowly leaving the ancient city of Knidos below us..

Oldukça sıcak bir gündü ve Knidos antik kentini aşağılarda bırakarak yavaşça yükselmeye başladık..

It was great to see the boats still using the entrance of the antique harbour..

Antik limanın hala teknelerce kullanıldığını görmek harikaydı..

We climbed more but it was still far away...

Biraz daha tırmandık ama hedef hala oldukça uzakta görünüyordu..

Wild goats were watching this crew with great interest..

Yabani keçiler bizi ilgi ile izliyorlardı..

Finally the mission was accomplished and as usual celebratory photos were taken..

Sonunda görev tamamlandı ve adet olduğu üzere bol bol fotoğraf çektirildi...

Some wine, sandwich and plums to rest and enjoy the magnificent view where the waters after Mediterranean and Aegean were mingling with each other..

Sandviçlerin yanında biraz şarap ve erik dinlenmek ve Akdeniz ve Ege'nin sularının birbiriyle oynaştığı muhteşem manzaranın keyfini çıkarmak için yeterliydi..

Coming down is always harder than going up but a cooling rest was waiting us at the steps of the Knidos theatre..

Aşağı inmek, yukarı çıkmaktan her zaman daha zor oluyor ama antik Knidos tiyatrosunun merdivenleri dinlenmek ve serinlemek için bizi bekliyordu..