10 February 2015 - Laodicea, another wonderful and different ancient city

Packing morning again!  Always a bit of a shove and squeeze with our 70 litre hybrid packs! We couldn’t really take more weight or size when there are 5 of us travelling and we have to use public transport.  One of these each plus fairly brimming day packs and a hand held food bag or two really is about maximum practical luggage.  The delicious Turkish breakfast was welcome and we were well fed again!  I was the only one who enjoyed the creamy fresh milk from the farmer yesterday and of course there was apple chai and the rest!

We paid our bill which was significantly less than what we had calculated!  Always lovely to have that kind of surprise!  The mix up with the booking and the change of hotels meant that we had much cheaper accommodation and might I add really lovely service, and as a bonus we paid less.  I am very glad to have stayed three nights in Pamukkale which is a tiny quiet town where the locals were very hospitable and friendly.

After the trek up the road (literally, as it is a quiet country road and the footpaths are full of bumps and holes) to Metro bus stop, we left our luggage courtesy of the free left luggage service and caught a dolmus to Laodicea.  The walk from the main road was about 1 km up hill to the ancient city. In its glory days, it was the region’s capital before a series of devastating earthquakes. The final blow in 7^th century AD, caused the city to crumble beyond restoration and it was then deserted and the city of Denizli was established as the main business centre.

Laodicea

 The entrance to Laodicea was through the Syrian Gate.  Now all that remains are some tumbled columns with visible carvings.  Once through the gate, one ascends to the bath house which had a Caldarium (hot room), a Tepidarium (luke warm room) and a Frigidarium (cold room).  Magnificent arches still stand.  It would have looked like a palace.  Given that people did not have wash rooms in their homes, this would have been a popular (and necessary) place!

Part of the Syrian Gate

Fallen arch way

Part of column

The Bath House

Arch on an arch!

Confident of the strength of these old arches

Syria Street

 The history is staggering and the ruins amazing.  Excavation really took off here in 2003 and there is a fair bit of restoration and archaeological work going on at the moment.  We came across a geologist who was doing his field research: Prof Dr Halil Kumsar, who was measuring a part of a fallen column.  We had a wonderful conversation with him about his work.  He is working on a paper which will cite his findings about fault lines and which one was actually responsible for which earthquake and the destruction of Laodicea.  We learnt so much from him!! He answered questions we had but could not find answers to: Now we know that: the columns were held together by lead and there are little holes for pouring in the lead visible between the layers of marble, as well as the fact that they were carved at the quarries before being moved to various sites and that bullocks were mainly the mode of transport.  We will look up Halil’s journal article in The Journal of Engineering (?) Geology in a few months.  FASCINATING!!!!

Halil Kumsar at work

Karl pointing out lead pouring hole

Fallen columns everywhere

Laodicea is mentioned as one of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation.  This area is rich in Biblical history.  The yet to be excavated ruins of Colossae (as in the book of Colossians) as well as other places mentioned in the Bible are literally on our door step.  Time and lack of our own transport meant we couldn’t see all we wanted to but are delighted to have seen this site as well as Ephesus.

At Laodicea there are amazing mosaics and remains of a fantastic church which is still closed for renovation/restoration but the photos in the guide books look impressive!

One of 4 temples (at least)

Carving still pristine!!

Restoration work in progress

Imagining the grandeur

These columns are tall!

Another lizard!!

Luke checking out the lizards - twenty, thirty or more running over the rocks!

Latrine shot...of course, just for the record!

Framing splendor

Handstand dwarfed by column height!

Great place for a jump!

...or two...

or three!

The main street, paved with huge travertine stones, Syria Street, went for 900m with drains and columns and grandeur.   There were also two theatres – built on the scarf of fault lines, which lead to easy natural geographical building sites but put them at risk of future earthquakes of which there were many!! – and according to Halil Kumsar, will continue and big ones, too!  We are hoping not in the next 10 days…..These theatres had huge capacities of 8000 people!  We speculated on why two grand theatres were built so close together…was it to do with the wind direction to carry the voices or ????

Dwelling on Syria Street

We had excellent fun scrambling down and up the ruins.  Once again, we count this as a real privilege, just to be able to do this.  I seem to be in the wars at the moment because I twisted my ankle on the way down the tumbled theatre (easy to do in amongst the weeds and rocks), just as my knee from my spectacular Bodrum splat is feeling almost better.  It happens like that sometimes when you are being a bit extra careful because of one injury and so it continues…and skiing in 10 days…hoping I’ll be fine!

North Theatre

North Theatre ruins - privileged to take these photos with no other tourists in them!!

West Theatre looking down

Exploring

More ramblings and FUN!

All the world's a stage

Crumbling base of West Theatre

The kids were quick to notice lizards everywhere!  They were really cute, spiky and we’d never seen any ones quite like them.  According to the man in the little shop at Laodicea, they are unique to Laodicea and National Geographic has photographed them!  Luke was really excited about this!  Then, as we talked to this man, he told us about his travertine floor which is non slip – a fact we had noticed – and about fossils found whilst getting his travertine floor.  He showed us a fossilised crab!!  That really did make Luke’s day!!! 

Laodicean Lizard

 We really do love the possibility and privilege of “slow” travel and being able to chat to people and take our time instead of being whipped along on a tour sticking to their pre-organised schedule.  Karl reckons we are moving too fast, and perhaps we are, but at the same time, we don’t have unlimited time, just a bit more time than many.

We took the dolmus back to Pamukkale for one last meal at Ottoman House, where we were spoiled with Turkish coffee and Apple chai and Luke was given lemonade!!  We spent some hours there as they had free Wi-Fi and we were “homeless” until our night bus tonight!  Whilst we were there enjoying their hospitality, two other lots of foreigners came in, so we had helped their business!  We asked about one of the instruments hanging from the ceiling, a sas (sash), a 3 double stringed sitar like wooden instrument.  The host played a bit, then Karl had a turn!  The walls and ceiling were decorated with carpets and paraphernalia.  

Turkish coffee

Deep in Wi-Fi thought

Sas player at Ottoman House

Then it was a dolmus back to Denizli, me hobbling along and the others having to carry my pack because my ankle was so sore.  Kebabs for dinner – our standard fare – with ayran (buttermilk) to compliment them.  The big bus station had several power points for charging all our devices so that is great service….and there is Wi-Fi on the buses!