Hierapolis, or Priest town, is the last of our city visits to the Lycus Valley.  Today it is famous for the ‘cotton candy’ cliffs, really more like the limestone cliffs of Dover.  Pamukkale is what it is called hence cotton candy, and so we will look at the modern attraction now.  It used to be the case that there were all these hotels built right on these cliffs, but it was destroying them, so this site became part of the... Read more

From this end you can see the apse that was built into the house. Perhaps the council of Laodicea met here….  but then when we turn to the later Byzantine church buildings we are in a whole different ballgame… Some of these are very large and very public… Considerable money was invested in these buildings… They have mosaic floors, indoor plumbing, etc.   But now on the northside of town they’ve found another large church… and this worker in the... Read more

We know there was a Jewish presence in this town long before there was a Christian one, as can be seen by looking at this column’s carvings. Earlier menorah and shofar on the bottom, somewhat faded, later Byzantine cross above it… Later Byzantine inscriptions had a particular way of forming the Greek letters that were distinctive, as in this example…. Notice the omicron Right in the middle of numerous Greco-Roman structures–basilicas, temples, homes, columned streets, games… Christians decided they should... Read more

Laodicea, as you may remember comes in for some heavy criticism in Revelation…. It was a very large (by ancient standards) prosperous city that had a water problem, namely the water was brackish. Last time I was there they showed me a Brita  filter of sorts installed in a villa meant to get out the calcium and other minerals that made the water not very potable. But this was not the only problem for this site— earthquakes devastated this site... Read more

Perhaps by now you’ve gotten a bit hungry digesting all that archaeological data— how about some normal food instead?  Well we have just the thing for you.  Mehmet is making you a pide— the Turkey version of a long pizza of sorts… Or perhaps you just want to go through the buffet line…. Yes that’s umpteen different kinds of olives prepared in different ways… everything imaginable grows in Turkiye And all that was for breakfast, but actually my favorite Turkish... Read more

The remains of the Roman road can be seen right beside the entrance way to the lower city of Sardis. And as the picture shows, there were various sorts of shops that line the avenue or road. And these shops even had plumbing— notice the clay pipes on the left. In the first century, many families ran a sort of fast food counter service out of the front of their houses, something you can see several times at Pompeii and... Read more

Some of the seven churches of Revelation really provide us with little or nothing to see in the present (e.g. Thyatira and to lesser degree Philadelphia), but Sardis is a different story, and we will consider it in this post. Like so many of these cities, the reason we find it out in a field and not close to any real city is because of the earthquakes which destroyed or severely damaged so many of them that they were eventually... Read more

The Asklepion is near to, but outside the lower city of Pergamon.  It was reached from the acropolis by a via sacra, or sacred way. These special roads were not uncommon when one had a major temple complex which was not right in the city. Another good example would be the sacred way in Ephesus that led from the city to the Temple of Artemis.  In Latin this covered walkway which began from the theater at the base of the... Read more

Pergamon.  This site makes the acropolis in Athens look like a molehill, and it gives new meaning to the phrase nosebleed seats in stadium or theater. You will soon see exactly what I mean.  Here are two illustrations of what the site looks like (which by the way takes a ski lift to get to, normally). Let’s focus on the theater hanging on the side of a cliff first…. To make matters worse,  the god of wine, Dionysius had his... Read more

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