Today we learned about quality Turkish rugs. Wool on cotton, wool on wool, silk on silk, dies, double knots, and the many many excellent reasons we should have spent over $1000 on a rug. Unfortunately, we didn’t act quickly enough and we lost our opportunity forever. (So sad, too bad.)

The highlight was visiting Ephesus. A city on this site was established by the Amazons. In turn, it was ruled by the Hittites, Greeks, Fresiens (sp? – all errors are the sole fault of our tour guide!), Syrians, and finally the Romans. It’s the best ancient city site in Turkey. If ever you visit, be sure to get the second ticket to tour the Roman house. I promise you will be blown away. But enough of the Greco-Roman stuff. It’s not surprising the Amazons had a female god named Epheza. But it didn’t stop there. Here’s an Anatolian Mother Goddess from 7000 BC. No doubt fertility was an important superpower of this god.

Here’s gold god from 580 BC.

The Roman version was Artemis. These two statues survived the period where Christians destroyed pagan statues by burying them in the sewer. Nobody found them until the archeologists started digging over 100 years ago. Artemis has all manor of animals and plants in the lower part of her body, and hundreds of breasts. She is the mother god for all of creation, and feeding the entire creation is her superpower,

Finally, here is the Ephesus theater. What does the theater have to do with female gods? St. Paul preached at the theater. He told the people that they had to stop worshiping Artemis and worship only God. The people got so riled up that they wanted to kill Paul. That would not do. Paul was a Roman citizen. Officials put Paul in jail for his own protection. They smuggled him out of Ephesus on a boat a couple of days later.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The main event today was the city of Aphrodisias. This was a pilgrim city. People traveled great distances to visit because it emphasized the female god. As our guide pointed out, This area always had a female god. One of the earliest carvings from 5,000 years ago was of a female god, obviously emphasizing fertility. Since then the female god has had many names. Sometimes she emphasized love and beauty, sometimes motherhood and protection. But there was always a female god and it was always very important in the hierarchy of the pagan gods.

Aphrodisias was more than a typical Roman town. It had the second largest coliseum in the ancient world. All around he coliseum were stalls or stores. A covered walkway allowed visitors to walk between stalls in comfort.

You’ve seen plenty of pictures of Roman town ruins. I’ll leave you with this sunset scene from our hotel, overlooking the Aegean sea. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The Hittites built the first empire with written records in this area, the next empire was built by the Pergamenes, and the Pergamenes built the city of Hierapolis. (Pay attention, there might be a test.) Hierapolis has underground limestone caves that supply water to springs in the area. Because the cave water is warmed by the Earth, it is believed to have curative powers. Because the water is high in Calcium Chloride, white deposits cover thee area. The white deposi8ts are basically the same as stalagmites and stalactites in a cave.

Besides having curative powers and offering a staggering view, Hierapolis was easily accessible to three more empires in addition to the Pergamenes. (Sorry, I didn’t keep up with all the details. I cancel the test to avoid embarrassing myself.) The city quickly became the pleasure center for all four empires. They are the only city in the area with not one but two theaters. They had plenty of opportunities to get drunk, gamble, take baths, and visit brothels.

Today, countless tourists walked through oppressive sun and heat to wet their feet in the stream, or swim in the pool,which still provides healing to countless sick people sharing their germs and viruses with each other. Danita decided to walk in the stream. Here’s a pic of the stream.

There’s a big advantage to viewing a museum of ancient history with an archeologist guide. The placards, books, and other museum literature will show you pictures, dates, and physical characteristics of the objects on display. An archeologist will explain how this applies to the residents — how they lived, where they lived, what they believed, etc. — plus how and why these things changed over time. The latter is more interesting, but takes some time to discuss. Here are a few interesting quick takes.

Shortly after pottery was invented, people of the area started placing their dead in large pots and burying the pots underground. The buried only the bones. When additional family members died, they opened the pots and added the newly departed. It wasn’t uncommon for a pot to hold the remains of seven people.

The two small bottles hold perfume. The fancy decoration of the pots acted as a trademark. It made the perfume popular throughout the larger area of the time, all the way to Egypt and beyoned.

The most artistic pots slowly shifted from Antalya to Greece. Greece made the fabulous pot on the left. Then suddenly, they lost the ability to make those pots. They switched to the black puts on the right. Nobody knows why.

The green color in these pots comes from lead. They knew that lead was poisonous, but they warmed their wine in these poisonous pots anyway. Apparently, they liked the color.

We have the afternoon off today. We resume our ride in the morning. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

First the important news. Maia was born yesterday about 11:00. Her stats are 7 lb 13 oz, 20.5 in. Everybody is doing well. Jul is up there helping out until we get home. We can’t wait to meet her in person.

Today we finished driving to Antalya. It’s a lot of driving. We had only a few stops to break up the drive. Our first stop was a bathroom break. This was an interesting stop because they had a playground. Danita and I took a ride on the merry-go-round. We were soon going so fast we had problems staying in the seats.

We crossed the Taurus mountains. If you drive across the Appalachian mountains, you see roughly the same land on both sides. Not so in Turkey. The land, fauna, crops, climate, and wild animals are completely different. The mountains are steep with winding roads. They are much rockier than the Appalachian mountains. Our lunch was at a road side stand. We had filo dough stuffed with cheese and spinach. This is a little bit like Greek pies. Women had three hot tables and prepared or lunch while we watched.

We also stopped at the Aspendos theater. This was built in the second century AD. It is the only complete ancient theater, including the entire original back stage building. It’s used quite actively today. People sit on the original Roman stones. Bring your own cushion, or rent one when you arrive. I’m not including a pic the pic would look exactly like dozens of other theaters.

Finally w arrived at our hotel in Antalya. This is a very high class hotel with views of the Mediterranean. They offer a buffet for both dinner and breakfast. The number of options for dinner and desert are overwhelming. Here’s the view from our room.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

How do you know you’re on the silk road? From the smell of the camels, of course. There are no camels in Turkey today, except for some tourist attractions that want to sell camel rides. Back in the day, there wasn’t one silk road, but many. They all ran from China to Constantinople. They went through different countries. Countries competed with each other to get the traffic and trade from the merchants. In 1229, the king of Turkiye built this camel hotel, formally known as the Sultanhan Caravansaray. They offered food, baths, and stalls to store your goods and rest your animals, all free. He built similar facilities every 20 KM, all the way to Constantinople.

The building was divided into an open air area in the front for use in the summer, and an enclosed area in the back to use when it was cold. Here’s a pic of the winter area. The height of the ceiling and size of the rooms emphasize the majesty and importance of the king. The rugs are part of an art exhibit. They wouldn’t have been there in the 1200s. If you are interested, there are a few more pics on the web site.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Oops. I made a mistake. Cappadocia is at number 5 on the travel map (not 4, which is the Hittite capitol). It’s a good thing I’m not the tour guide.

The highlight of the day was watching a Sema ceremony (Whirling Dervishes). The poet and teacher Rumi made this part of the Sufi religion. I don’t understand very much of the ceremony, but the sincerity of the dancers was obvious. They don’t allow pictures during the ceremony, but after the ceremony three men returned to let us get our pics.

The other highlight was a visit to a pottery company. The company we visited is a 200-year-old family business. One of the men in the family explained the process. He told the story that trained to be a potter. After an appropriate apprenticeship, he was tested by making an object. He said that after his test, his father told him to learn English so he could help sell. Most of what they make is white clay artistic pieces. The beauty of these pieces is breathtaking (as is the price). We purchased a wall tile made by student potters, which is much closer to our budget. You can see some pictures of impressive people doing their work on the website.

In case two major attractions is not enough, we also visited an underground city. Earlier we saw cave homes, some of which were lived in by Christians hiding from Roman persecution. When that proved to be an ineffective hiding spot, early Christians built elaborate underground cities. These had anywhere from 5 to over 20 levels. They had rooms for animals, food and water storage, and bedrooms for the occupants. I made it to the first room, took one picture, and let Danita complete the tour.

We also stopped to see several unique rock formations, including the famous Angel Chimneys and a Hittite warrior. Several pictures are on the website for those who are interested.

We also stopped to see several unique rock formations, including the famous Angel Chimneys and a Hittite warrior. Several pictures are on the website for those who are interested.

We are staying at the Yunak Evleri cave hotel. It’s one of many cave hotels in the area. The property and the food are very nice. It’s unavoidable, but we got a lesson on why caves aren’t a very good place to live. Not the least issue is ventilation, and the floor stand fan did little to improve things.

Our first regular tour stop was the Goreme Open Air Museum. Early Christians decided this would be a good place to hide out and avoid Roman persecution. It turns out it didn’t take the Romans long to find this “secret” spot. Never the less, Christians dug churches out of the caves and decorated them with frescos, some of which are in remarkably good shape. We weren’t permitted to take pictures inside. Some of the holes were doors or windows, others come from erosion removing the outer wall and exposing interior spaces. There’s a few pics on the website.

We had lunch at a private home, then visited a small town for shopping. We aren’t big on shopping. I found a coffee shop and had a Turkish coffee. Danita relaxed. I didn’t know this, but when one orders a Turkish coffee, the restaurant assumes the customer is probably thirsty. They bring the coffee and a bottle of water, so the customer can quench their thirst after finishing the coffee.

Most of our time was spent driving from Ankara to Cappadocia. We broke up the ride with a stop in the Hittite capital. We know a lot about the Hittites because we can read their cruciform tablets. They wrote contracts for everything up to and including marriage – effectively a prenup. Hittites also “invented” loaning money and charging interest. One thing we don’t know about the Hittites is what they did with their dead. We haven’t found any burial grounds, or descriptions of death ceremonies. The Hittites built with stone footers and mud brick walls. The mud brick is long gone. If I included a lot of pictures, you would see a lot of stones in dirt, which isn’t very interesting. We saw three city gates. Here’s a pic of the tunnel gate, which is kind of cool.

Cappadocia is a valley surrounded by four volcanos. Over the millennia, they blew their tops, creating layers of magma and pith (volcanic ash). The pith is soft. For 3,000 years, people dug their houses out of the pith. This continued into the 1950s, when the government moved people to more traditional above ground houses. The mixture of magma and pith also created many interesting formations.

This is a popular area for hot air balloon rides. Our tour did not include a balloon ride, but they reserved spots for those of us who were interested. We didn’t know about this until after the tour started, but it didn’t take long for us to decide we were interested. We got up at 4 AM and brought our credit card. It turns out Road Scholar reserved spots with a specific pilot. Some pilots go up, then down and that’s it. Ours went up, swooped (swooped slowly, nothing in a hot air balloon happens quickly) back down to the ground, got close to interesting formations, slowly rotated the balloon so everybody could get good pictures, and in general proved himself precision pilot for sure. It was quite entertaining and we had a wonderful ride.

If you want to see some balloon pics, visit the blog.

One of the main reasons I was interested in visiting Turkiye was to see the Hagia Sophia Church/museum/mosque in Istanbul. That will come at the end of the trip. It turns out there are much better reasons to visit. I don’t think I have ever had a single day when I learned more than I learned yesterday (Friday).

Turkiye was formed after WW I. They didn’t want to be associated with the incompetent and corrupt Ottoman Empire, or the Greco/Roman/Byzantium era. So they formed a secular republic and placed the capital far away from Istanbul. To get away from the Greco-Roman history of Istanbul, they emphasize being an outgrowth of Anatolia. The Anatolian Civilizations Museum is a small but important museum, tracing human history from 1,300,000 years ago. If we had just visited, we would have blown through the museum in an hour. Be we had museum guide who has his doctorate in ancient civilizations. Again and again, he pointed out significant firsts that we would have missed.

Most of the pieces are original finds of archeological work in the area. The era spans from Homo Erectus to the late stages of the Hittites. I was amazed at how much we know of our ancient history. Anatolia had as much impact on human civilization as did Syria and Egypt, Babylonia, etc. Exhibits started with the first tools (basically, rocks) and showed how they became smaller and more specialized over the millennia, finally leading to early cave paintings. From there we “visited” the earliest villages, where homes had entrances only in the roof. We saw Obelisks from the Gobekli Tepe site that show a strong hunter culture long after most humans had switched to agriculture. One of the people in our tour asked our guide if we could ever recreate Neanderthals based on ancient DNA. The Jurassic Park question? Really??? It turns out there really are no dumb questions. Scientists have created Neanderthal stem cells. They learned that Neanderthal DNA replication error rate is much higher error rate than most other species. It turns out Neanderthals had their own serious problems.

I wish I could go back for a day, carefully photographing, and comparing my notes to what the placards say. But it’s time to move on. Our next stop is the Hittite capital. In the meantime, enjoy this wine cup. It doesn’t have or need a stable bottom. The cup is passed around and around the room, each person drinking in turn; refilling the cup as necessary.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.