View across the Agora, looking up to the city's ancient citadel atop Panos Hill, now Kadifekale.

Pergamon • Day 3

Türkiye

September 25, 2023

A short walk around Bergama’s Museum and a very long walk all around Pergamon’s famous Askelepeion, where Galen once taught, where Carla drank from the sacred spring and was serenaded by Russian tourists!

An easier day today, at least that’s the intention. After a classic Turkish breakfast of cheese, olives and many choices of fruit, my first destination is the local museum, which had some interesting pieces of statuary and a wing dedicated to Bergama’s history, specifically its weaves. The lighting is horrible, flicking off if you stand still.

Walking out of the museum, I headed for my next destination – the Askelepeion. Just as I turned the corner to head to its entrance I noticed a statue to another famous local, this being Kadri, who in the 1500s formalized and standardized Turkish grammar. That’s a full 200 years before the standardization of European languages began.

The Askelepeion

Ticket bought, I walked into the precinct of the Askelepeion. This is an ancient sanctuary dedicated to healing: Askelepeios being the Greek god of healing. There are several such places dotted around the Aegean; they functioned as the earliest hospitals and care centers. This center was the most famous of them all, for here it was that the physician Galen lived and worked 1900 years ago. Galen’s treatises became the bedrock of both European and Islamic medicine for over a thousand years.

The colonnaded approach is not so impressive, until you learn it was two kilometers long, stretching as far as the Roman theater (now a ruin in the valley beyond), and completely covered. The best way to think of this place is a shopping mall going right up to the front door, where the staff decided if patients would be let in:

“Near death or pregnant? No! No money? Around the back and wait your turn!”

Those admitted then could look upon a serene area, part spa, part sports ground, part cultural center, with patients’ wards in several buildings and even a special underground ‘ward’ where patients suffering from bad nerves could rest and sleep to the quiet murmur of water running from its sacred source. You can see some of the remains of all these places, scattered around a large open field.

Click on photos to increase size and read details.

The Theater

I was standing in one corner of the precinct when of a moment, from the diagonally opposite corner where a small theater sits, the sound of a rich tenor voice singing ‘O Sole Mio’ a capella. Either a gifted amateur, or a true professional. The acoustics were so good that his voice carried all the way, far beyond the original design of the theater, strong and clear.

I just had to walk straight across to congratulate him, tell him I could hear him from afar, and ask him if he was Italian, as his tone was pitch perfect Napolitano. “Russki!” was his humorous reply, the others in his tour group cheering. He was Kruschevian chubby; his friend, on the other hand, a white blond, tousle-haired giant of a man with piercing ice blue eyes. He strode up to me while we were all on the stage. He then sang, extremely well, a traditional Russian song, his eyes fixed on my mine, less than a hand’s span from my face. Clearly he was having fun doing the Russian bear thing, friendly gentle style. His song done, with a flourish I exclaimed ‘Bravo!!’ and shook his hand with vigor. The crowd cheered. We all clapped. Both singers truly gifted. I headed for the bleachers.

From the theater I wandered around the ‘campus’, discovering the font of sacred water, cupping my hands to drink some. Who knows? From there I descended into the sunken tunnel where patients needing calm once slept. I suddenly remembered Tirta Empul, a sacred precinct in Bali where running water is used for spiritual health. This must have been something similar, no doubt with formal and informal bright-flowered processions walking to the sound of cymbals, bells and drums. The experience in Tirta Empul was wonderful and serene; it must have been here so also.

Click on photos to increase size and read details.

My maeander through the Askelepeion done, I tried to find a way to walk to the not distant Roman era theater and the amphitheater beyond. This proved to be more arduous than planned, so I renounced the effort and bummed a ride back to center of Bergama. Here I walked several blocks in the older quarter, but didn’t see anything ‘picturesque’, so in the end I did walk the main road all the way back to the hotel. The day was done, a refreshing swim in the pool to complete it.

One gentleman taking in the late afternoon sun as he sits on the sea breakers fronting Izmir's long promenade.