The new museum in Urfa is mind-blowing. It is big, it is beautiful and it is full of things from Gobeckli Tepe….. There are helpful re-creations in this museum of the Gobeckli site, for example….. This drawing helps us picture the building of the site….. Perhaps the most remarkable find of recent vintage is the totem pole…… The totem clearly enough has a human figure at the bottom, appearing to be making some sort of clay vessel, then perhaps another... Read more

In some ways, it is as instructive to examine some of the newest dig sites, for example this one where you see a head of a monolithic column standing up, as is true at one of the squares on this site, both on the back side of the hill…. Some of these columns are highly decorated, some less so…. most have creatures on them and a few have humans or deities…. There is rather clear evidence this was a sacrificial... Read more

Snuggled in between the Tigris and the Euphrates (as was the garden of Eden according to Genesis), is Gobeckli Tepe, which means pot-bellied hill. Today the site is mostly under roof for protection, with the current roof being temporary…. it is difficult to get at, or see a lot of the standing monoliths, frankly. This was not the case when I first visited this site some years ago. The radiometry studies show some 20 circles to be excavated, but in... Read more

We are now in the middle of blockbuster season, and the third episode in the Star Trek reboot is upon us, for another two hours of rockem’ sockem’ sci fi, courtesy of Justin Lin, the director of the Fast and Furious series. This episode tries to take us back to the days of the humor of the original Star Trek, with the witty character development and dialogue, but Lin is unfortunately far too anxious to get to the next fight... Read more

I’ve deliberately saved the most important posts for last, the posts about the most ancient high place or religious site/sanctuary yet found on earth, dating to about 9.600 B.C. and so a Neolithic site. I am referring to the dig outside of the town of Urfa at Gobeckli Tepe, which I’ve blogged about before, so this is an update on the dig there…..Here’s an orienting map. Here’s the view from this high place…. This very area is where agriculture, the... Read more

One of our last stops before going into port at Marmaris (a truly touristic town, where apparently even Jesus has a shop)….. is the ancient city of Kaunos. Here is the sign at the site….. Kaunos was once a port city but as with Ephesus and other such cities, the harbor silted up….. We did not visit the high fortifications at Kaunos see here… Rather we toured the ancient theater….. here’s the vomitorium or exit ramp for the actors… One... Read more

Among the various surprising things on the island of Kos is the Hippocratic Institute, where doctors and others meet who are interested in the pursuit of the goals of good medicine. Hippocrates and Galen were the two most famous ‘founders of medicine’ in antiquity, and Hippocrates in particular took a more passive, let the body heal itself approach, with the motto ‘do no harm’. Here’s a bust of the man himself found in the museum at the Institute…. Here is... Read more

Let’s start with a drawing of what the giant Asclepion temple would have originally looked like when completed. And here’s an artist’s rendering— To say this place was massive is an understatement, and it required some real effort to get up to the temple site. The lower terrace is interesting as well, where we found one creature bringing his offering for a sacrifice. In case you’re wondering he has a still live lizard in his mouth…. There is a fountain... Read more

In some ways Kos is like a much smaller version of the Greek island of Rhodes, with the same sort of quaint town and shops, and ruins. Here, as on Rhodes the Knights of St. John had a center, and helped build a castle. They were called Hospitallers because they were dedicated to the care of the ill. The group is named after John the Baptizer not the apostle John, and they seem to have been formed in Jerusalem somewhere... Read more

Bodrum is a beautiful city with an imposing castle. We only spent a little time there, as the Gulet boat was waiting to take us to the Greek island of Kos. I guess you could call it a Kos effective journey 🙂 Here’s the instigator of these adventures my old friend and newly baptized follower of Jesus, Levent. It’s hard to describe how beautiful the Aegean sea is….. Homer spoke of the ‘wine dark’ seas, and they are indeed a... Read more