Instanbul Day 6 – May 8, 2024. Today we toured Ephesus which is located in what is called Asia Minor.
Ephesus was a city in ancient Greece on the coastof Ionia. It was built in the 10th century BC. It was famous for the nearby Temple of Artemis. The Great Theater of Ephesus, and could seat 25, 000 people.
Library of Celsus was started in 100 CE as a funerary monument for Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, and completed about 117 CE. It is one of the only remaining examples of great libraries of the ancient world located in the Roman Empire and was believed to have held around 12,000 scrolls. Celsus is buried in a crypt beneath the library.
Many inscriptions appear on random pieces of monuments. We saw several archeological teams working throughout Ephesus. They have uncovered only 15% of this ancient city.
The cutouts in some stones are believed to be calculator.
The main road leads from the top of the hill down to the harbor of ancient Ephesus. It was lined with columns and on both sides, and there were pedestrian paths and shops on the other side of the columns to the left and right in this photo.
There were public latrines used by men, where they multitasked by socializing and completing business transactions. Women had other latrines.
We had a delicious lunch at the Sultankoy cooperative. The wine, fruit and vegetables we enjoyed were all produced on the 16 acres of the cooperative, which was originally the home of an English family named Walker.
We saw a woman making a silk Turkish carpet, at Sultankoy carpet cooperative. She works at this 3 to 4 hours per day taking breaks every half hour.
At the Sultankoy carpet cooperative we learned how they harvest and treat the silk, cotton and wool used in carpets, and then how Turkish carpets are made. They were stunning, but we did not buy any!
Our last stop before returning to the ship was The Artemision, where the massive Temple of Artemis existed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Construction started around 570 BC. All that is left is the column in the foreground. Behind this to the right is what is left of the Basicila of St. John, to the left you can see the Isa Bey Mosque and in the background in the far left is the Ayasulk Castle