The climb up Mt. Nimrud is breath-taking, quite literally, and for some reason it was harder for me this time than five years ago. Surely it couldn’t be because I’m older now— could it? But even more breath-taking is the view in all directions from the top of Mt. Nimrud. When one approaches this peak from a distance it stands out from the range it is in, not least because of its artificial top, which may or may not contain... Read more

It is hard for me to stress enough how beautiful a country Turkey is. And the Commagene kingdom which includes Arsemeia, Zeugma, and Mt. Nimrud, the mount Olympus of Turkey is some of the most beautiful. Arsemeia is on the back side of Mt. Nimrud and on the way to it. King Antiochus Commagene was a remarkable fellow, not only claiming direct descent from Darius the Persian, but also the inheritor of the Alexandrian legacy, and so like Alexander he... Read more

The phrase ‘built to last’ gets thrown around a lot in our time, but frankly we ain’t got nothing on the ancient Romans. When they built a bridge or a road, or an aqueduct, or a theater or a coliseum, well at least some of it is still around in most cases. As for us, we can’t even make asphalt last three years without cracking and potholes. You get the picture. One such bridge is the bridge pictured above which... Read more

Without question, the mosaic depiction most commented on by scholars, and rightly so is the so-called Zeugma Mona Lisa, or more commonly called the gypsy woman. So celebrated is this mosaic that it garners its own dark room for display. Look for a while into these eyes… what do you see? Many of the other mosaics are less skillfully rendered than this one, but they are still impressive whether depicting a god like Dionysius, or Helios riding his sun chariot... Read more

I flew directly from Istanbul to Gaziantep to meet my friend Meltem Chiftchi (my usual superb guide) and a couple of others to tour the new Zeugma museum there with its fabulous mosaics extracted from Roman villas in Zeugma before that part of the land was submerged by the new Attaturk dam waters. What was Zeugma? Actually it was twin towns on the Euphrates (on which more anon). A zeugma is actually a term for a rhetorical device, but there... Read more

Yep, those are faux camels headed down the traffic median in Gaziantep, just outside the famous Zeugma mosaics museum (on which see the following post). Why are they there, you may ask? Well Gaizantep was on the spice road which came from the Middle East through Jordan up the King’s highway into Turkey and then west across Anatolia (note what the wise men brought from the east to give Jesus— spices like frankincense and myrrh). So, as one would expect... Read more

For better or worse, it was the practice of Muslim conquerors to: 1) take over churches and turn them into mosques (e.g. Hagia Sophia) which unintentionally helped preserve some of these churches and their features, and 2) alternately, they would build on top of such structures, which is what happened with the Byzantine Palace the remains of which are under the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. To be fair, the Palace was mostly in ruins due to an earthquake, so this... Read more

Why is this man staring at you? Well, because he is offering you the opportunity to come and be photographed as a regal figure in the Ottoman and pre-Ottoman style. Really it should be called the Osmanli style, but the British screwed that up, just like they did the name of the country which is Turkiye not Turkey (three syllables not two, and named after turquoise not the bird). So people come to the great Osmanli palace to see many... Read more

According to church historical evidence, there were three ‘first’ churches of Byzantine Christianity– one named for holy peace (St. Eirene which becomes St. Irene in English), one for holy wisdom (St. Sophia), and one other for holy power (St. Dynamis), which has not been found. St. Eirene is in fact the mother church which was dedicated by Constantine himself no less. It dates to the fourth century A.D. It has not been open to the public before 2014, but it... Read more

Sometimes archaeology is just a matter of pure luck. Take for instance the case of the discovery of the wrecks of numerous ancient ships near Istanbul. It was all over the news. and rightly so. But the dig in progress was for the new tunnel under the Bosphorous providing another way to get from the European to the Asian side of Istanbul, not to mention a new subway station. What to do about this find? Well, they weren’t going to... Read more