hello hello! 🌸 For this week’s blog post, I’ve decided to take you on my journey to Ephesos. I’ve visited there several times however the last time I’ve been there was in 2020 for my honeymoon and I must say that it was the most amazing time I’ve had in so long. I was fully prepared for this trip, and we did visit many other ancient city ruins during our honeymoon as well. We basically planned our entire vacation revolved around the cities we wanted to visit and we didn’t have a fun hotel time to rest, we were adventurers for a whole week and I am so glad for it. We saw so much, we learned so much and we experienced so much that looking back now, I feel lucky. Incredibly lucky.
Though I have so many photos to share from various archaeological museums and ruins, I wanted to start my travel diary series with one of the most famous ones: Ephesos.
Before I start the post, all photos are taken by me and I will link everything that I used as the source to this post! If you want to learn history in depth, do check the links, please!
“Ephesus was an ancient port city whose well-preserved ruins are in modern-day Turkey. The city was once considered the most important Greek city and the most important trading centre in the Mediterranean region. Throughout history, Ephesus survived multiple attacks and changed hands many times between conquerors. It was also a hotbed of early Christian evangelism and remains an important archaeological site and Christian pilgrimage destination.”
The first thing you need to tell yourself is that on the very roads, you walk on in the ruined city, everything your eye catches has an incredible history behind it. There were guided options you can buy before entering the city and if you want to know in-depth as you walk around the ruins, I highly suggest you buy a guided tour because nothing is more fun than listening to a very passionate person telling you the stories behind everything. We didn’t do it this time because both my husband and I had been on guided tours there before, so we wanted to act like two adventurers and have fun on our own. There are two main entrances to the city, we walked up under 40 degrees sun but with proper sunscreen, hats and long sleeves, it is not something that you cannot handle. Bring a huge bottle of water too, and if you have a thermos it would be the best because water does get hot quite quickly there. 🙋🏻♀️
Much of Ephesus’s ancient history is unrecorded and sketchy. What is known is that in the seventh century B.C., Ephesus fell under the rule of the Lydian Kings and became a thriving city where men and women enjoyed equal opportunities. It was also the birthplace of the renowned philosopher Heraclitus.
The Lydian King Croesus, who ruled from 560 B.C. to 547 B.C., was most famous for funding the rebuilding of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, chastity, childbirth, wild animals and the wilderness.
(from history.com)
Ephesus is not the most well-preserved ancient city I’ve seen, however considering the era and the wars, natural disasters and reign changes it has been through, it is clear that once a glorious and strong city did handle the centuries quite well. It is usually pretty crowded, as it has always been, however, that doesn’t mean that you cannot take amazing pictures and read to your heart’s content. We spent most of our time reading the info cards that are in front of the ruins, and they are everywhere trust me! I brought a notebook for the names of the kings and wars to remember and my notes on certain things did help me a lot during my visit. If you are interested in history, there were also books that explained everything in more detail than the info cards around. I already had one booklet with me from my previous visits but the book/souvenir shop there had some amazing books and I got two different history books in English, there are many language options and I’m incredibly glad about that. Fairly cheap too! 🖖🏻
In 129 B.C., King Attalos of Pergamon left Ephesus to the Roman Empire in his will and the city became the seat of the regional Roman governor. The reforms of Caesar Augustus brought Ephesus to its most prosperous time, which lasted until the third century A.D.
Most of the Ephesian ruins seen today such as the enormous amphitheater, the Library of Celsus, the public space (agora) and the aqueducts were built or rebuilt during Augustus’s reign.
(from history.com)
During the reign of Tiberius, Ephesus flourished as a port city. A business district was opened around 43 B.C. to service the massive amounts of goods arriving or departing from the man-made harbor and from caravans traveling the ancient Royal Road. According to some sources, Ephesus was at the time second only to Rome as a cosmopolitan center of culture and commerce.
There are so many things that make you watch -literally- marble in awe, however, my favourite ones are especially well-preserved and important to the city. The first one is the face of Ephesus, the picture that pops out the first time when you write the name of the city on Google: The Library of Celsus.
The Library of Celsus (Greek: Βιβλιοθήκη του Κέλσου) is an ancient Roman building in Ephesus. The building was commissioned in the years 110s CE by a consul of the Roman Republic, Gaius Julius Aquila, as a funerary monument for his father Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, former proconsul of Asia, and completed during the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, sometime after Aquila’s death.
Wikipedia
This massive beauty is one of a few examples left as ancient libraries to this day. Though I’ve seen it various times, it still amazes me with its glory every time. In ancient Greece, it was hard to get the privilege of just being able to read, however, the civilisation was well-developed thanks to its well-educated “men”. I’m mentioning “men” because it was impossible -almost impossible- for women to get proper education, however, still the ancient Greek people helped science and many other disciplines tremendously. The inside part of the library was burned in the fire, the cause currently unknown but either an earthquake or an invasion. Still, to this day, this architectural marvel is standing in the middle of the ancient city, welcoming its modern visitors.
“The Heracles gate is located on the Curettes road and separates uptown from downtown. Two monumental pillars from the structure hold reliefs of Hercules. An inscription says the gate dates back to the 2nd century AD. However archeologists believe these reliefs were brought from other buildings to be used in the construction of the gate sometime in the 4th century AD. This theory is supported by the fact that Curetes Street was used as a pedestrian area starting around the 4th century. It’s clear from its architecture that the Heracles Gate would have narrowed the access to the street, preventing the passage of vehicles. As materials from other buildings were frequently repurposed in new construction, it is likely the pillars were reused because of their decoration.”
ephesusturkey.com
The overall feeling of being able to walk through an ancient civilisation’s city is incomparable. It has always been for me, however, the very land I live in has been one of the key points throughout history, which welcomed countless different cultures; sometimes all together and sometimes separate. Ephesus is an important part of history because the port city’s significance in commerce and social relations with other cities close to it shaped the culture over the reigns.
This temple dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian is considered one of the best preserved and most beautiful structures on Curetes Street. It was constructed in the beginning of the 2nd century AD by P. Quintilius to celebrate Hadrian visiting the city from Athens. Emperor Hadrian was considered one of the Five of Good Emperors. This term is used for the Roman emperors Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. These men succeeded in winning the support and cooperation of the senate, something previous emperors had been unable to accomplish.
ephesusturkey.com
Historians say that the name temple is kind of misleading regarding this architectural BEAUTY because it has been built as a monument. This was one of the things I’ve spent the most time watching, the delicacy of it amazes me still. The fact that these ancient people were able to create such an amazing work with a solid stone? I have no talent in this but I must say that sculpturing is one of the things I adore and respect the most. Maybe it is because I do not understand it, however it is such an amazing form of art from which side you look at. By this point though, we both were hungry so we sat down at a small cafe down the street – well to be quite honest, it is like a street food stall instead of a cafe of course- ate the sandwiches I made in the morning and also grabbed an ice cream because we both were sweating our souls off. After resting a little under the shadow of a column, yep, how cool is that? We kept going up and up!
If you are a bit curious about the glory of old times and how similar we actually were with our ancestors, I suggest you visit somewhere like this. It doesn’t have to be Ephesus, though it is one of the biggest and most well-preserved in Turkey, however, go somewhere to see the culture. Go to an ancient ruin to see the similarities of you, look at the roads you walk on and imagine a great hero walking down the very path you are walking. Imagine that culture and get rid of the modern crowd, focusing on the thousands of years before everything. Touch marble as much as you can, because who knows which one you’ll touch? Maybe you’ll dream of the memories of someone who lived there before.
For anything related to history, I’m a hopeless romantic. This is probably why I had this much fun during this trip. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that the very column I touched was also touched by Hercules, Achilles or someone who hanged everything in our modern world. Of course the way I see these beauties would not happen to everyone but Ephesus surely is a magical place. It surely is.
I hope you enjoyed this post, I hope to see you soon! 💖
Luster of Books 