View across the Agora, looking up to the city's ancient citadel atop Panos Hill, now Kadifekale.
Ephesos • Day 2
Türkiye
September 22, 2023
Back to the center of Ephesos, to see its buildings and streets in the bright morning sun and visit the terrace houses. Then to the now desolate Ancient Wonder of the Artemision. After which a walk by the old way up to the Isa Bey Mosque, St. John’s Basilica, the Castle and the acqueduct.
I’m off to Ephesos again, to shoot more fotos, this time with the sun over the nearer line of hills.
It’s early; the minibus doesn’t leave before 08:30. No worries, I decide to start the day with a coffee. No luck, the people who gave Europeans coffee and cafés don’t drink coffee (unless its Nescafé); they drink tea. Nice, but I need real coffee to start. I find this out here, and everywhere thereafter. By 08:45, coffee-less, I’m in Ephesos, heading for the key points I want to ‘reshoot’. Here is the result:
The Artemision
On the way I asked the driver if he could drop me off by the path to the Artemision; which he very kindly did.
I wandered along the curving path, everything hidden by high oleander bushes. To the right, sunken down and hidden by the trees, an old Seljuk tomb. Then a great open space, a deep depression in its center and a single franken-column, a confection made from the shards of many different columns, stuck forlornly in the center of the empty field.
This is what remains of the Artemision, the Temple to Diana of Ephesus, so great and wondrous that it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
How is this so? Many earthquakes, ruinous invasions, the change of religion from Pantheic to Christian, and the robbing away of absolutely everything that remained to build a large Christian basilica and then an equally large Moslem mosque. Indeed, you can still see the Artemision in front of you, for it is to be found in all the columns and walls of St. John’s Basilica, set on the hill with the ring of castle walls behind it, and in the high and solid walls of the Isa Bey Mosque, with its domes and colonnaded precinct.
Two people headed towards me, having appeared from a small pathway the other side of the desolate space between us. Ah, I thought, maybe there is another way out of here, so I followed the track heading the other way. Sure enough there was a gap in the fence, which left me just below the Isa Bey Mosque, its walls shrouded in scaffolding and cloth; clearly it is being restored. I got as close as I could, then followed the small road up the hill, to find myself at the top of the hill I had walked up yesterday on my way to the hostel.
St. John's Basilica and the Castle
To my left, the great gates to St. John’s Basilica – and the castle! My ticket was valid for me to visit both, so I did, there and then. This St. John is, according to legend, John the Apostle, aka the Theologian, supposed author of the book of Revelations, written by John when he lived in Ephesus. Indeed, Saul/Paul lived some time in Ephesos, and near the city lies the reputed retirement home of Mary, mother of Jesus. These sites make Ephesos a pilgrimage destination for Christians, especially Protestant Evangelicals.
The Basilica, which dates from late Roman times, is mostly a ruin, its outline defined by slender columns and great fallen chunks of brickwork.
Beyond it, a rocky pathway up to the high castle walls, set with many towers. Is this a Carcassonne, with a fabulous, if ruined, keep and buildings inside? Through the tight switchback entrance, the old wooden gates and ….. nothing. Well, almost nothing. All that remains here is a small mosque and a one-time church, sheared into a water cistern, its roof cracked and basin dry. This mighty, rocky hill is bald, a stone crown set on its brow. Amazing!
The Back Story
This is where I back up and give you the back story. This hill is the real, actual, original Ephesos; Apasas it was called then, some 4000 years ago, settled by the Luwians of Arzawa, one of Anatolia’s indigenous peoples and well known to the Hittites deep inland. At that time the sea gulf extended to just below where the hill sits; the Artemision, built some 3000 years ago over a more ancient shrine, sat by the shoreline.
Just as with Smyrna, river silt and leaching from the new fields around the bay made the end of the gulf a swamp, then fertile farming land. Again, just like Smyrna, Ephesos was moved, to where the famous ruins are now – again for its port to die thanks to the steady filling in of the gulf. Now the sea sits on the horizon, many kilometers away.
People lived in ‘classical’ Ephesos until the region was taken by the Seljuk Turks, who settled around the ancient hill, with its defensive walls, near the mosque and among the arches of the aqueduct, still bringing fresh water to the pool at its terminus. The hill and town they called Ayasoluk, an adaptation of its Byzantine name of Hagios Theologos (Sacred Theologian) – i.e. John.
You can travel the back story in Selçuk’s Ephesus Museum, which holds many relics from the time of Apasas to that of Ayasoluk, most notably the cult statues to Artemis/Diana (photos above).
Why is the town called Selçuk now? Because in the aftermath of Greece’s failed attempt to conquer the Ionian coast, in 1923 the new Turkish Republic resolved to cancel everything Greek from the land, so Ayasoluk became Selçuk in memory of the time this was once the Seljuk capital. And in that time, before the Ottomans conquered the Seljuks, one Shams Ibn Battuta of Tangiers visited Ayasoluk on his way to Constantinople.
Again I have walked where Ibn Battuta once walked! I have now seen two of the seven Ancient Wonders of the World: the Pyramids and the Temple to Diana of Ephesus. The Mausoleum in Halicarnassos (Bodrum) will be next!
Having walked my feet off, again I retired to the tranquillity of the hostel’s roof terrace. Dinner this time was my favorite pide kiymali, but no Efes.
One gentleman taking in the late afternoon sun as he sits on the sea breakers fronting Izmir's long promenade.