Turkey Trip—The Fellowship of the Ring, no-wonder-this-city-fell-to-the-Persians, and “ask the oracle” (Priene, Miletus, and Didyma)--1/13/2010

I started my day early, planning to spend my devotional time by the fire in the sitting room. When I got there, though, there was no fire. I had forgotten this fireplace burns wood logs which need to burn down and grow cold at night. It’s too early for anyone else to want a fire, so instead I sat in this lovely room, facing the marina and let the morning sky be my devotional backdrop.

Even though I waited until 7:20 to go to breakfast, I was still the first from our group. It wasn’t long, though, before others began to trickle in. As we ate breakfast, the sky clouded up, and by the time we left the hotel for our day at three sites, it was raining.

Because of the rain, we did not get to enjoy the full effects of the beautiful scenery on the way to Priene. When we arrived at the site, it was sprinkling and very cloudy, so I donned both my rain jacket and my hurricane pants. (Thank you to my outfitter, Mary Elizabeth.) We climbed to the Priene site. This is the first time we have seen a site situated in a forest. I do not know if the other sites were forested previously and the trees cut in years past, or if the trees here have grown up in the last 1,000 years. Whatever the reason for the trees here, they make this site seem different from the rest. With the clouds, the ruins, and the trees, I felt like I was in the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring when Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo.


In the theater at this site are 5 stone chairs, evenly spaced along the front row, for the big shots of Priene to have prime viewing of the activities held here.

Just as at Ephesus, the sea is no longer as near to the site as it once was. Here the rivers have silted what was the coast. However, the view from the temple, looking out on what is now a plain, is magnificent.
Wandering around the site, we found a church, with steps to what we think was the pulpit still intact—in the middle of the church.

While we wanted to stay longer here, the loud thunder signaling nearby lightning encouraged us to head down to the bus and on to our next site for the day—Miletus.

Miletus, though situated above the plain surrounding it, is not built on a cliff, a hill, or a mountain. Consequently it would have been harder to defend, so I was not surprised to learn it had easily fallen to the Persians. For me, the most striking feature at Miletus was its theater.

Columns still stand in “the orchestra pit” part of the theater—at the front. We saw individual stone seats, evenly spaced, about mid-way up in the theater. Many of us assumed these would be the seats of Miletus’ very important people. However, both Lewie (our professor) and Tosun (our guide) said the VIPs would be seated on the front row. Among the seats in this theater are holes in which the viewers could set up poles to hold awnings—keeping the sun out of their eyes.

The seats were also marked (etched), and we wondered if these markings indicated which families sat where or was this the ancients’ way of indicating row 23, seat 15?


When we walked around to the back of the theater, we saw the ruins of the rest of the city and what had been the harbor. Usually groups run down to the harbor, but because of the rain, the slopes were slippery and full of large, deep puddles of water. We chose to enjoy our view of the city from here. In the distance, we saw a mosque with grass growing on its dome—we christened it “the chia mosque.” (Chhh Chia)

Next we drove to Didyma for lunch and to visit the oracle’s place at the Temple of Apollo there. Our entrée was a delicious fish (smelled fishy but did not taste fishy) dish, and our dessert was halvah—brown sugary tasting block with tangerine to cut the sweet taste.

Across the street from our restaurant is the Temple of Apollo from which an oracle prophesied. The size of this temple was
astounding.
Only a few columns have been restored to their full-standing height. It is mind-boggling. For most of the columns, the bottom sectios still stand. They are taller than I, and only about 1/7 the height of the columns.

One of the fallen columns is arranged so that we could see its length (since looking up at the standing ones still defies understanding how tall they were). I am supposed to be holding up this column in the picture here.


We wandered around inside the temple area, where the oracle would have been.

Unfortunately no one was here today to tell us our destiny.

See more pictures from Priene, Miletus, and Didyma here.