Cappadocia (pronounced /kæp??do???/; also Capadocia; Turkish Kapadokya, from Greek: ?????????? / Kappadokía) is a region in central Turkey, largely in Nev?ehir Province.

The name was traditionally used in Christian sources throughout history and is still widely used as an international tourism concept to define a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage. The term, as used in tourism, roughly corresponds to present-day Nev?ehir Province.

In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine (Black Sea). Cappadocia, in this sense, was bounded in the south by the chain of the Taurus Mountains that separate it from Cilicia, to the east by the upper Euphrates and the Armenian Highland, to the north by Pontus, and to the west by Lycaonia and eastern Galatia.

Etymology

The earliest record of the name of Cappadocia dates from the late 6th century BC, when it appears in the trilingual inscriptions of two early Achaemenid kings, Darius I and Xerxes, as one of the countries (Old Persian dahyu-) of the Persian Empire. In these lists of countries, the Old Persian name is Katpatuka, clearly not a native Persian name. The Elamite and Akkadian language versions of the inscriptions contain a similar name from Akkadian katpa “side” (cf. Heb katef) and a chief or ancestor’s name, Tuka.[2]

Herodotus tells us that the name of the Cappadocians was applied to them by the Persians, while they were termed by the Greeks as “Syrians” or “White Syrians” (Leucosyri). One of the Cappadocian tribes he mentions is the Moschoi, associated by Flavius Josephus with the biblical figure Meshech, son of Japheth: “and the Mosocheni were founded by Mosoch; now they are Cappadocians”. AotJ I:6. Also see Ketubot 13:11 in the Mishna.

Cappadocia is also mentioned in the Biblical account given in the book of Acts 2:9. The Cappadocians were named as one group hearing the Gospel account from Galileans in their own language on the day of Pentecost shortly after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Acts 2:5 seems to suggest that the Cappadocians in this account were “God-fearing Jews”. See Acts of the Apostles.

Under the later kings of the Persian Empire, the Cappadocians were divided into two satrapies, or governments, with one comprising the central and inland portion, to which the name of Cappadocia continued to be applied by Greek geographers, while the other was called Pontus. This division had already come about before the time of Xenophon. As after the fall of the Persian government the two provinces continued to be separate, the distinction was perpetuated, and the name Cappadocia came to be restricted to the inland province (sometimes called Great Cappadocia), which alone will be the focus of this article.

The kingdom of Cappadocia was still in existence in the time of Strabo as a nominally independent state. Cilicia was the name given to the district in which Caesarea, the capital of the whole country, was situated. The only two cities of Cappadocia considered by Strabo to deserve that appellation were Caesarea (originally known as Mazaca) and Tyana, not far from the foot of the Taurus.

Geography and climate

Cappadocia lies in eastern Anatolia, in the center of what is now Turkey. The relief consists of a high plateau over 1000m in altitude that is pierced by volcanic peaks, with Mount Erciyes (ancient Argaeus) near Kayseri (ancient Caesarea) being the tallest at 3916m. The boundaries of historical Cappadocia are vague, particularly towards the west. To the south, the Taurus Mountains form the boundary with Cilicia and separate Cappadocia from the Mediterranean Sea. To the west, Cappadocia is bounded by the historical regions of Lycaonia to the southwest, and Galatia to the northwest. The Black Sea coastal ranges separate Cappadocia from Pontus and the Black Sea, while to the east Cappadocia is bounded by the upper Euphrates, before that river bends to the southeast to flow into Mesopotamia, and the Armenian Highland.[3] This results in an area approximately 400 km (250 mi) east-west and 250 km (160 mi) north-south. Due to its inland location and high altitude, Cappadocia has a markedly continental climate, with hot dry summers and cold snowy winters.[4] Rainfall is sparse and the region is largely semi-arid to arid.

History

Cappadocia was known as Hatti in the late Bronze Age, and was the homeland of the Hittite power centred at Hattusa. After the fall of the Hittite Empire, with the decline of the Syro-Cappadocians (Mushki) after their defeat by the Lydian king Croesus in the 6th century, Cappadocia was ruled by a sort of feudal aristocracy, dwelling in strong castles and keeping the peasants in a servile condition, which later made them apt for foreign slavery. It was included in the third Persian satrapy in the division established by Darius, but continued to be governed by rulers of its own, none apparently supreme over the whole country and all more or less tributaries of the Great King.

Kingdom of Cappadocia

After bringing the Persian Empire to an end, Alexander the Great tried to rule the area through one of his military commanders. But Ariarathes, a Persian aristocrat, somehow became king of the Cappadocians. Ariarthes I (332—322 BC) was a successful ruler, and he extended the borders of the Cappadocian Kingdom as far as to the Black Sea. The kingdom of Cappadocia lived in peace until the death of Alexander. The previous empire was then divided into many parts, and Cappadocia fell to Eumenes. His claims were made good in 322 BC by the regent Perdiccas, who crucified Ariarathes; but in the dissensions which brought about Eumenes’s death, the son of Ariarathes recovered his inheritance and left it to a line of successors, who mostly bore the name of the founder of the dynasty.

Under Ariarathes IV, Cappadocia came into relations with Rome, first as a foe espousing the cause of Antiochus the Great, then as an ally against Perseus of Macedon. The kings henceforward threw in their lot with the Republic as against the Seleucids, to whom they had been from time to time tributary. Ariarathes V marched with the Roman proconsul Publius Licinius Crassus Dives Mucianus against Aristonicus, a claimant to the throne of Pergamon, and their forces were annihilated (130 BC). The imbroglio which followed his death ultimately led to interference by the rising power of Pontus and the intrigues and wars which ended in the failure of the dynasty.

Main article: Cappadocia (Roman province)

The Cappadocians, supported by Rome against Mithridates VI of Pontus, elected a native lord, Ariobarzanes, to succeed (93 BC); but in the same year Armenian troops under Tigranes the Great (Tigran) entered Cappadocia, dethroned king Ariobarzanes and crowned Gordios as the new client-king of Cappadocia, thus creating a buffer zone against the encroaching Romans. It was not until Rome had deposed the Pontic and Armenian kings that the rule of Ariobarzanes was established (63 BC). In the civil wars Cappadocia was now for Pompey, now for Caesar, now for Antony, now against him. The Ariobarzanes dynasty came to an end and a certain Archelaus reigned in its stead, by favour first of Antony and then of Octavian, and maintained tributary independence until AD 17, when the emperor Tiberius, on Archelaus’ death in disgrace, reduced Cappadocia at last to a Roman province. Much later it was a region of the Byzantine Empire.

Cappadocia contains several underground cities (see Kaymakl? Underground City), largely used by early Christians as hiding places before they became an accepted religion. The Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th century were integral to much of early Christian philosophy. It also produced, among other people, another Patriarch of Constantinople, John of Cappadocia, who held office 517—520. For most of the Byzantine era it remained relatively undisturbed by the conflicts in the area with the Sassanid Empire, but was a vital frontier zone later against the Muslim conquests. Cappadocia formed part of the Armeniac Theme and later of the themes of Charsianon and Cappadocia.

Cappadocia shared an always changing relation with the neighbouring Armenia, by that time a region of the Empire. The Arab historian Abu Al Faraj purports the following about Armenian settlers in Sivas, during the 10th century: “Sivas, in Cappadocia, was dominated by the Armenians and their numbers became so many that they became vital members of the imperial armies. These Armenians were used as watch-posts in strong fortresses, taken from the Arabs. They distinguished themselves as experienced infantry soldiers in the imperial army and were constantly fighting with outstanding courage and success by the side of the Romans in other words Byzantine”.[5] As a result of the Byzantine military campaigns and the Seljuk invasion of Armenia, the Armenians spread into Cappadocia and eastward from Cilicia into the mountainous areas of northern Syria and Mesopotamia, and the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia was eventually formed. This immigration was increased further after the decline of the local imperial power and the establishment of the Crusader States following the Fourth Crusade. To the crusaders, Cappadocia was “terra Hermeniorum,” the land of the Armenians, due to the large number of Armenians settled there.[6]

Following the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, various Turkish clans under the leadership of the Seljuks began settling in Anatolia. With the rise of Turkish power in Anatolia, Cappadocia slowly became a tributary to the Turkish states that were established to the east and to the west, and some of the population converted to Islam. By the end of the early 12th century, Anatolian Seljuks had established their sole dominance over the region. With the decline and the fall of the Konya-based Seljuks in the second half of the 13th century, they were gradually replaced by the Karaman-based Beylik of Karamano?lu, who themselves were gradually succeeded by the Ottoman Empire over the course of the 15th century. Cappadocia remained part of the Ottoman Empire for the centuries to come, and remains now part of the modern state of Turkey. A fundamental change occurred in between when a new urban center, Nev?ehir, was founded in the early 18th century by a grand vizier who was a native of the locality (Nev?ehirli Damat ?brahim Pasha), to serve as regional capital, a role the city continues to assume to this day.

In the meantime many former Cappadocians had shifted to a Turkish dialect (written in Greek alphabet, Karamanl?ca), and where the Greek language was maintained (Sille, villages near Kayseri, Pharasa town and other nearby villages), it became heavily influenced by the surrounding Turkish. This dialect of Greek is known as Cappadocian Greek. Following the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the language is now only spoken by a handful of the former population’s descendants in modern Greece.

Modern tourism

The area is a famous and popular tourist destination, as it has many areas with unique geological, historic and cultural features.

The region is located southwest of the major city Kayseri, which has airline and railroad (railway) service to Ankara and Istanbul.

The Cappadocia region is largely underlain by sedimentary rocks formed in lakes and streams, and ignimbrite deposits erupted from ancient volcanoes approximately 9 to 3 million years ago, during the late Miocene to Pliocene epochs. The rocks of Cappadocia near Göreme eroded into hundreds of spectacular pillars and minaret-like forms. The volcanic deposits are soft rocks that the people of the villages at the heart of the Cappadocia Region carved out to form houses, churches and monasteries. Göreme became a monastic center between 300—1200 AD.

The first period of settlement in Göreme goes back to the Roman period. The Yusuf Koç, Ortahane, Durmus Kadir and Bezirhane churches in Göreme, houses and churches carved into rocks in the Uzundere, Ba??ldere and Zemi Valleys are all carriers of history that we can see today. The Göreme Open Air Museum is the most visited site of the monastic communities in Cappadocia (see Churches of Göreme, Turkey) and is one of the most famous sites in central Turkey. The complex contains more than 30 rock-carved churches and chapels, some of them have superb frescoes inside, dating from the 9th to the 11th centuries.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia

Today we go to the Topkapi Palace. I guess now I really am talking Turkey. This is the best known site in the country. Of course it was helped a great deal by the film TOPKAPI about the theft of an emerald-encrusted dagger. It is not clear to me why anybody would make an emerald encrusted dagger. The point of a dagger is to protect you. If you have an emerald encrusted dagger you need to protect yourself. And you need to do it with something a good deal more protective than a dagger. This is like making a fly swatter, encrusting it with sugar and dipping it in honey. Who thinks of these things?

The bathroom in our room is full of instruction. “Please put all paper & sanitary waste into the box ONLY.” “ATTENTION! Shower drain is slow. Please TURN OFF the taps when you do not ACTUALLY use the water. Otherwise room may get FLOODED.” Well, I guess it is part of the price of travel. I have seen some strange plumbing but this is the first toilet I have had to use that could not handle paper. Somehow I think a person’s used toilet paper should be a matter for privacy. This is one of the bathrooms of the style that the whole floor is a drain. Usually this means that there is a thick barrier to protect the outer room from getting wet. Not so here. You just have to take a short shower. And afterwards you don’t want to come in with stocking feet.

We went down to breakfast. There are three circular tables, each about a yard in diameter. Each had at least one person and one had a couple. We had to ask to sit at a table already partially occupied. Not really a problem, I suppose. Not compared to the toilet paper situation. CNN was running a piece on finger pumps. These are apparently things you put on the backs of your fingers in order to give your fingers more exercise. I was a little sorry to see this on CNN’s International News. I mean we Americans know how bad the thing that passes for news is, but I hate to see it advertised abroad. I wish we could get BBC news in the US. Few countries have such fatuous stuff as their news. Of course the younger generation is becoming insular. If they watch CNN day and night they would still not know much of what was going on in other countries. Finger pumps are not the most edifying stuff.

After breakfast we headed off to our one and only site of the day, the Topkapi (TOAP-kap-ah) Palace. This was the combination White House and Capitol for almost 300 years. Sultans ruled Turkey from this exquisite palace among palaces. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror took Constantinople and made it his capitol. He built this place and lived there until his death. For about 386 years it remained where the Turkish were ruled. The first Sultan was Mehmet II and the last was Mahmut II.

Once again we were saved from the ravages of coming in season. There was just a huge mob coming to the palace, but not as bad as it would be in the summer. In the summer there would be hordes or legions. They have you go through a security check just to get in. I was a veritable pile of metallic objects, and as I expected the alarm went off as I went through the metal detector. I waited to be told to stop or to be asked my name or something. Nobody cared. I guess they just like to know if people are entering with metal on their person like a camera or a stray hand grenade.

There is a separate admission for harem. It costs a million to get into the palace and an extra half million to see the harem. I guess sex sells.

There are lots of cats wandering the palace and a few dogs. The cats are considered a very nice animal in Islamic countries and they are well treated. A dog is thought of as being just a sort of large friendly rat by many. When we were out walking yesterday we saw a girl scream at something she saw. It was a dog walking toward her. To avoid her the dog turned toward a sidewalk only to see us standing there and did not want to come near us so brushed past the girl and ran up the street. The poor dog was only trying to be inoffensive and get out of the situation without coming near to anyone. Humans clearly had not treated her very well in the past. If the girl had panicked it would have been considered the dog’s fault.

Outside the palace the entry point is the Court of the Janissaries. It was there that they would eat. Janissaries are professional soldiers stolen/drafted at age ten. They were rounded up from Christian families and became the personal property of the Sultan in a private army. Most soldiers were soldiers only in the summer months, but Janissaries spent the whole year training and/or fighting. The boys would learn Turkish and Islam. These were the real muscle of the Sultan. They were a force 12,000 strong under Mehmet II, and they grew to about 20,000. Eventually celibacy was no longer required and this led to nepotism and corruption. If they turned against the Sultan they would overturn the cauldrons of their food. When the Sultan saw this happen he knew he had just hours to live. Mehmut II finally ended the system of Janissaries by first fielding a European style army, then provoked a revolt among the Janissaries reorganizing them without their permission. They revolted and he then had the army come in and destroy the Janissaries.

Inside the entrance is a broad tree-decorated grounds. The trees look Mediterranean to me, but I am no expert on trees. We had tickets for the first tour of the harem and waited for it to open.

Now you cannot walk through at your own pace. You can get in only with a guided tour in Turkish or in English. There are signs telling you what everything is, but the guides whisk you past them preferring to explain to you what everything is in their Turkish accented English. This means there is no good way to tell what anything is. I suspect the guides are hired for their knowledge of English and nobody tests their diction.

The West has romanticized the institution of harems. I think that in our imagination the appeal is really a return of a sort of infancy. When one is an infant one is cared for, fed, and pampered with little responsibility except to perform natural bodily functions. One has no freedom, but then it is not needed since the baby can get most of what it really needs. As one becomes an adult a new bodily function is added, that of sexuality. But it is not unwelcome. The harem girl returns to a sort of simplistic infancy. The harem girl gets all she needs in return for doing what is natural to her. So was Picasso. But then so is a cow.

I can’t say I learned a lot about the harem since when our guide said what sounded like “Italian court,” it was really “imperial hall.” The harem quarters did not look very comfortable though one did have some curiosity as to what they were like. One really could have a contest like the one in the joke where first prize was a night in the harem quarters and second prize was two nights in the harem quarters.

But lest you think the harem quarters were too uncomfortable I will add that they were not at the time. After the harem we saw the carriages of the Sultan and Evelyn said they did not look comfortable. In fact they had the supreme comfort feature of that time or any time. They had windows the passenger could look out and see people less comfortable. That has always made people feel comfortable. There are certainly a lot of people who are living lives of luxury by previous centuries’ standards yet who think they are uncomfortable. The reason is that they are not seeing anyone less comfortable.

As we were walking we passed a white rabbit. Honest. I told Evelyn that I didn’t want her following the rabbit. She promised she would not follow it down a rabbit hole. I told her I didn’t want to see her become the Alice of the Palace. (It is a film allusion.)

We continued on to the third court in the palace. Now we were getting to some of the serious stuff. In one pavilion we see the Sultan’s throne. It seems to be made with a smidge more room in the seat for the Sultan who never gets out of the palace and has had a few too many sweets.

Another room has kaftans worn by the Sultan and some of his major ministers. Many are of rich color, either bright or deep like purple. Then we move on to jewels. Objects functional and objects abstract. Many have the symbols of different countries that they would have had at home. There would be Russian Tsarist stars with double-headed eagles, from England they have a cross in red, the jewels from the US spell out “Mazel Tov, Sydney and Bernice” in diamonds. (I was kidding about that last part. Sidney and Bernice would never let their stuff be given to a Sultan.)

Finally we got to the main event. Here it comes movie fans and jewel thieves, the emerald encrusted dagger of Mahmud I. It was a gift from him to someone else, Nadir Shah. Nadir gave Mahmud I a gold throne. So it was a happy exchange except that somehow Nadir Shah ended up dead and Mahmud ended up with both the throne and the dagger. Surprise! Okay, for those who have seen the movie and want to try getting the dagger, here is your update. It is no longer on the Sultan dummy. It is behind glass in the wall. But it is not all bad news. The good news it that it is in an outside wall. And there is something else that I noticed that I am not mentioning here. I will exchange what I noticed for just one of the large emeralds. Take it from me it is a bargain. But I need positive assurances that I will get the emerald or I will say nothing. Look, if I had experience with this sort of thing I wouldn’t need you. One crummy inch-long emerald is not a lot to ask.

We stopped for lunch, which we had at the little restaurant in the palace. It was about what you would expect from a museum restaurant. The lines were long; the food was expensive, at least by local standards. It was cold by the time we could get through line. Still it did not taste too bad and we got a table with a nice view of the Golden Horn, the harbor. We shared a chicken sandwich, a donner kabap, I had a tamarind drink (very nice), Evelyn had apple tea, and we shared rice pudding. One of the rooms that follow has relics of John the Baptist, including hairs from his beard. Right. In this room there is a booth in the corner with a man constantly reading from the Koran.

Then there is the room with relics of Muhammad the Prophet. They have hair from his beard, a letter he wrote, a tooth in a box, casket for his mantle, his bow, and his sword. I am convinced this is an expensive and extensive set of relics. How many of them are really authentic I am less than sure.

Continuing on there is an arms exhibit. Well, every history museum has one, I think. There were arrows, and armor, and swords. Particularly notable was the armor, which was much more practical than European armor. Instead of a whole metal breast that was inflexible they linked overlapping plates like the tail of a lobster. Their helmets came to a point on top and had sides protected by chain mail. I am not sure if the point had a functional purpose or not. Maybe it just made them easier to identify on the battlefield. They had an executioner’s sword in a hinged case. There was a two-handed European sword that looked to be about six feet long. It is hard to imagine that being a very effective weapon. It just seemed too darn big to wield. It was not a big exhibit, but it was certainly of interest. There is something about arms that defines the times a lot better than furniture or clothing or just about anything else. I guess weapons change faster and somehow you can understand the purpose better.

Another building has more relics of Muhammed the Prophet. There are actual footprints edged in stone where the Prophet Muhammed stood. One was from his left foot, one from his right. The faithful are not supposed to notice that his two feet were of very different sizes. I have to say I am not sure why they put both in the same case since it is just inviting skepticism.

Of course Islam is not alone in discouraging a skeptical analysis of religious materials. People all over the world claim to have seen the Virgin Mary. It would take just the barest modicum of curiosity to get these witnesses together with police sketch artists, one at a time to confirm that they really are seeing the same miraculous woman appear to all of them. It certainly would go a long way proving that they actually are all seeing the Virgin Mary. The only reason they are not is probably a lack of faith on the part of the investigating Church officials. They see all these sightings as an aid to faith but they suspect that these sightings are all useful hallucinations.

We pass the Baghdad Kiosk intended to commemorate a military victory. There are some nice domed rooms that overlook the city. There is the home of the Sultan’s Physician. It was a position re-appointed when one physician retired. The sources I have seen contradict each other on whether non-Jews ever held the position. It is either rarely or never. Apparently the Sultans just did not trust a doctor who was not Jewish. The Sultan in 1492, Bayezit II I guess it would have been, celebrated the throwing of the Jews out of Spain. “You call this a wise king who impoverishes his kingdom and enriches mine?” The Jews in Turkey have been persecuted at times in Turkey. They have been heavily taxed, they have been forced to wear strange clothing to set them apart, they have been discriminated against in hiring, but they have never been thrown out. National policy is that they do not have equality with Moslems, but they are a welcome and valued minority. That has been the policy for 500 years and more. By American standards they are persecuted, but they are also accepted and after a fashion valued.

It was now about 3pm and we decided to take a load off our feet. We sit in a tulip garden and write and talk. We were there about 45 minutes before heading home. We passed through the courts with Mediterranean evergreens, then outside. There are groups with guides in French, German, Japanese, Hebrew, and who knows how many other languages.

We stop to get postcards. We buy stamps but two are required and they are more than a square inch. We comment and the postal clerk takes the stamps, tears two off and overlaps them so that only the price of the lower stamp shows. Okay, that works. We smile at each other.

Back to the rooms, a little early perhaps, I put on the radio to 88.2fm. My gosh there really is a local classical music station. I had asked the manager where he was getting the classical music that he plays. More working on the logs.

At 7:00 we went back to the same street for dinner and took one small turn at the end. There was a restaurant called the Altin Kupa. There was a tour group eating there which generally indicates the service will be slow (because there will be a lot of people there) but the food will be likely good (though they may just be giving a free meal to the tour leader). We found we liked what we go. We should say something about how to eat Turkish style. You get a big basket of decent bread. The bread comes in very standard loafs. If you say that a sandwich comes in a quarter loaf of bread, everybody knows how big that is. You have bread with every means and that is a big part of the meal. You use it to sop sauces and it becomes a major starch with the meal. For an appetizer I ordered Haydari. That was a very carefully chosen appetizer. Every other appetizer I knew what it was. This one I had no idea. Sounds good to me. Evelyn got soup and found it to be a sort of chicken rice soup. Mine was yogurt, mashed cheese, and herbs. You sop it up with bread, not unlike what you would do with humus. Yeah. I can live with that. My main course was little chunks of meat in sauce, as you might expect from something called gulashe. Evelyn had stuffed grape leaves. Neither came with starch or vegetable, but there was the bread. For desert we shared a baklava. It was enough to eat. And the restaurant had a nice warm environment with a tablecloth and an oil lamp on the table. With tip I paid 3,050,000TL. That is $12.20. And that was our last dinner in Istanbul, at least for now.

Maybe it was having a pleasant dinner under my belt, but I am starting to get a warm feeling about Turkey. I guess I had sort of formed my opinions based on films like Lawrence of Arabia, Yol, and Midnight Express. Also there was the belief they are considered troublemakers in this part of the world. The people seem a good deal friendlier than I would have expected.

Let’s see, if this is Monday this must be Selcuk. Salihli was not really a tourist town. They had one site several miles away. So the accommodations were not very good. There were one low-end place and two middle to high-end hotels. Selcuk seems to have a lot of hotels and much more competition and as a result it is a lot easier to get a comfortable room.

The one thing that seems to be a universal problem is that the covers do not really cover the bed. A little tossing in the night and your legs or arms are uncovered. The other problem in many places is that you cannot sit straight on the toilet. It is too close to the wall or the sink or the cutoff for the bidet so you have to sit at an angle. These are all minor inconveniences.

Selcuk is set in a hilly region. Mary Lynne asked someone yesterday the name of these mountains. Turkey has mountains and they are name. This is just a hilly region and there is no name for the hills, they are too insignificant. It is interesting, but none of the people want to be in the European Union. The people I have talked to are all relatively pleased that the country was rejected. They think that the country has resources that have not been tapped yet and the do not want to give them up to the Europeans. They think that the country can become rich if it stays on its own.

The film Prince of Darkness was about alternate interpretations of Christianity and it talked about a mystical “Brotherhood of Sleep” who knew the true purpose of Christianity to fight an evil force. I wonder if the inspiration came from the local Grotto of the Seven Sleepers. The legend says that agents of the Emperor Decius, trying to suppress Christianity pursued seven Christian boys. The boys hid in a cave where they could not be retrieved. The pursuers could not get the boys so the cave was sealed so the boys could not dig their way out. Two centuries passed. One day there was an earthquake and the wall blocking the cave crumbled. The seven youths arose from a sleep and walked to town to find their friends and food. Instead they found the town was now Christian, but all their friends were long dead. They lived out the rest of their lives with these strangers and when they died they were buried in the cave. This could also be the inspiration for Rip Van Winkle.

We hear the people just outside the door going to breakfast. They sound Australian. It is funny how few Americans we see here. I guess it makes sense that we would see a lot of Australians and New Zealanders, but I would have expected to see a slightly higher proportion of Americans. We ran into one set of Canadians (whom I consider to be “Americans” coming as they do from North America, though they don’t use that term to apply to themselves) but I don’t think we have run into many other travelers from the US. At least none long enough to talk to for long.

We have to ask at the desk if there is a bus to the ruins at Ephesus.

We go up to breakfast. Everywhere Turkish breakfast seems much the same. It is bread, hardboiled egg, tomato, jelly, honey, butter, cheese, and in this case cheese. I am eating it leisurely and the owner comes to our table. You have less than five minutes before your ride leaves. Okay. I have a ride? Well they did say something quickly about a shuttle to the ruins. I had thought it was an option. Suddenly I have a ride leaving in minutes. Evelyn says to send them on, she cannot possibly be ready in five minutes. “Well, maybe we give you a little more time.” I have a ride? Well, I am ready to go in the five minutes and it takes Evelyn a little longer but we are the in the lobby and there is a woman who will take us to the ruins. “We must hurry because there will be crowds at the ruins.” It is just us and the Sammons. So we pile into the van and in a few minutes we are at Ephesus.

“We pick you up in two hours and take you to my carpet shop. I am married to cousin of owner of your hotel. You don’t have to buy. You buy, we smile. You don’t buy. We smile.” So that’s it. As far as I have been able to tell, since Turkey was rejected from the European Union, the government would like better economic relations with the United State. The individual Turk has his own desires. He would like that Mark and Evelyn Leeper would come and visit his carpet shop. Right now the economic plans are on hold and the country is working full time to get Mark and Evelyn Leeper into carpet shops. Turkey has more carpet salesmen than the US has lawyers but otherwise the two professions have the same standard of ethics. In the US lawyers actually have to chase ambulances while in Turkey carpet salesmen just lay in wait under the nearest rock for a tourist to come by.

Pat and Mary Lynne take over this delicate negotiation. “But we don’t know how long we want to be at Ephesus.” “That is Okay, two hours is plenty.” “We want to go at our own pace.” “Then we cannot know when to pick you up.” “We don’t want to be picked up, and we don’t want to go to a carpet shop.” “Will you take my card if you change your mind?” I take the card.

A street boy is selling books and maps of Ephesus. He wants a million for a map, I offer 500,000TL. I get the map. On the way in we see at the admission box the same map is selling for 750,000TL.

What is Ephesus? It is the best-preserved Roman Empire city in the world. If you want to know what life was like in the time of the Roman Empire, this is the place. It recovered from an attack by Cimmerians in the 7th century BC to become prosperous in the 6th Century. It was ruled by the Lydians and the Persians. Alexander captured the city with no resistance but when he died the city went to Lysimachos. He brought the city to new artistic heights. Rome later ruled Ephesus but it was attacked and destroyed by the Goths in 262 AD.

Our first stop is at the theater. It was built in the third century BC. It held 24,000. It was built in the shape of a huge parabolic reflector. The structure is good for the view and better for the acoustics. It was used for plays and for more violent entertainment like gladiatorial fights and wild animal fighting. We first sit up in the peanut gallery but also stand on the stage. Voices really carry to the audience and back. After a while we move on. We were wondering however how they convince a slave to die on stage. They used to really kill a slave for realism.

The next biggee was the Library of Celsus, built 117-120 AD. It is a big two-story affair with a facade with two layers of pillars. Across the street from the library was a building identified in all sources as a bordello. On it are signs saying it was falsely identified as a bordello, but was really just a fancy house with a lot of rooms. You can believe whom you wish. Being right across the street from the library may have led to interesting dilemmas as to which way to for knowledge.

The alleged bordello was where excavators found a small statue of Priapos, a little man with an enormous phallus. A little further on there was the Latrina. There are no dividers between the seats and commoners and Emperors used it alike, though presumably the Emperor on the go could go to the head of the line for immediate seating.

The academic baths feature rooms to heat up and cool off after baths: a tepiariam, a calidarium, and a frigidariam. Most of the third floor has disappeared, but the lower floors could be identified. By this point the other tour groups were beginning to be a pain.

We walked further ending up going through a field where we saw a particularly well-armored thistle. Mary Lynne looked at it and dubbed it a triffid. Evelyn and I looked at each other. “She knows about triffids.” A triffid is a particularly nasty carnivorous plant from a novel by John Wyndham. One of my supervisors at one point asked me what the novel I was reading The Day of the Triffids was about. I stupidly said it was about man-eating plants and she sort of gave me a sour look. But actually that is not really what it is about. It is about societies and what makes them work and fail. A huge disaster leaves everybody but a handful of people on earth blind. Civilization immediately falls apart and small societies have to reform from start. Round 1 is whether your society falls apart of its own weight. Some do, some don’t. Societies that are entirely unselfish and altruistic fail, for example. Round 2 is whether your society can survive conflicts with other societies. Then if you have survived the first two rounds the question becomes can you survive really nasty disasters out there, worse than people. That is really where triffids come in. It is a really good novel that was the basis for a very mediocre film version and a very good BBC television version.

The thing to do if you have to push past a group is you say “Pardon,” in French with a French accent. If the group is French they know you are not, but they will like you because you are at least speaking their language. If they are German they do not forgive you, but at least they blame the French.

Toward the end of the visit is another theater, this one was at one time covered and had a capacity of about 1500 people. This one was used for concerts and for meetings. We were sitting in the theater when it started to rain. Evelyn and I whipped umbrellas out of our photovests. Mary Lynne was impressed. “Where did you hide those umbrellas?” I didn’t tell her my canteen was in the same pocket. My vest carries a water bottle, an umbrella, field glasses, a camera, a walkie-talkie, spare batteries for my camera and palmtop, earplugs, notepads, a palmtop and the Lonely Planet guide, and I can stash my jacket in the back pocket. I may be missing something. But it all comfortably fits on me. I feel like Batman.

Well, from there we start walking back to town hoping to see the Cave of the Seven Sleepers and the Temple of Artemis along the way. It is a long walk in what becomes the hot sun. If that were not parching enough, I am still on antihistamine. Very quickly my mouth goes dry. When I take a drink of water it feels like pudding. Mary Lynne is shorter than we are but Pat is over six feet with longer legs. He sets the pace. Often he is a fair distance in front of the rest of us. He says he can’t walk any slower.

We find the cave of the Seven Sleepers eventually. We cannot get inside as there is a grate blocking the way. We climbed up above the cave and looked down at it. People had written prayers on cloth and tied them around the grating above. On the way down we got some cold water. It was a bit overpriced at 250,000TL/1.5 Liter but it was good cold.

It was an even longer walk to the Temple of Artemis. The temple did not look its best today. In fact it had not looked very good since it was burnt down in 356 BC by headline-hound Herostratos. He wanted to be famous and he was like the guy who killed John Lennon. This was once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is lost to us in large part because it was disassembled by Christians who were building the local St. John Basillica. There appears to be a belief that of you are stealing for your religion it is really okay. A lot of our history has been lost by plunderers trying to please their gods.

A tout selling flutes asked me what country I was from. It is always a mistake to tell since they have a spiel in your language, whatever it might be. I looked at him strangely when he asked in different languages. I finally decided to tell him. “Magyar Repooblic. Hongary.” Mary Lynne said smiling “Buda-Pesh.” There was a little too much grinning and he knew we were lying. Well, lying is a strong word. My mother’s mother was born in Buda-Pesh. Her father was born in Baja. That is Baja, Hungary. But the flute salesman knew no Hungarian.

We continued our walk to town. It was not a lot further beyond the temple. We wanted to go to the museum, but lunch came first. I had Haydari and Octopus Salad. I mean, where else can you get octopus salad? Evelyn had Kofte. We continued on to the Museum of Ephesus. This is a museum to display the are found at Ephesus, as excavations are continuing. The exhibits include statues found at the site. Among the ones more familiar was Eros on a Dolphin. This motif could be familiar to the reader for the Alan Ladd, Sophia Loren film Boy on a Dolphin. Well, they couldn’t call the film Eros on a Dolphin, now could they? There is also the Priapos with the large phallus. There are various carved heads. There is an Ethnographic Section with exhibits of life in the country. There are farm implements, there is a barbershop, that sort of thing. There is the head and arm from an emperor statue seven meters high. It is truly of impressive scale.

We got some small gifts for people at the museum. Outside we sat around waiting for one person or another. A shoeshine boy came up to me. The material of my shoes is leather, but not with the usual finish and I would not trust a shoeshine on the street. The boy asked me where I was from, again I was from the Magyar Republic. He wanted to give me a free sample of what he could do for my shoes on the top of one shoe. Of course once I let him do that the shoes would never look right unless he did this to the whole of both shoes, perhaps not even then if he did not know what he was doing. This struck me as a particularly bad idea. I got up walked away from him. After all there is little point in getting these shoes polished if tomorrow they would just look dusty again.

The rest of the day does not bear a lot of description. It was farbling over what we would do the next day, what Pat and Mary Lynne would do, etc. We had different ways to do various sites to choose from. From about 6pm on we were in our room writing.

I finished writing about 10pm and read some article I had brought and saved on my palmtop.

Today is my birthday. I was up for an hour or so before we had to go. We got a wake-up call. He woman who ran the hotel had gotten up to wake us up. Since we were leaving early and could not stay for breakfast she had made us each a cheese sandwich on a half loaf of bread. She gave us those and two juice boxes of cherry nectar in a plastic bag. This was 4am she was up. Maybe she wanted our last impression of Turkey to be a good one. I cannot believe we in the US treat visitors as nicely. There are all kinds of Turks, but the country seems richly endowed with nice people.

Istanbul gives us a rainy farewell as we get in the dolmus to the airport. We get to the airport and find out the plane is leaving early to Munich. It will just give us more time in Munich.

There is a mob in front of the ticket desk. We have all sorts of strategies for getting through the lines quickly. As a result we are the last through. Well, we are really early for our flight so we have the time. Security is a little worse than arriving by having us go through two different magnetic checks. But it is little more than looking at the passport as far as asking questions.

We sit in the lounge and I doze a little. I am trying to convince myself it is around midnight even though the sun is rising, or would be if it weren’t a gray and ugly day.

We talked to a woman from Denver about bookstores. I hit the plane, getting the news that Frank Sinatra was dead on the way in from a day-old newspaper. I was already dozing by the time we took off. Was half-awake for the takeoff. Then went back to sleep. I did not even notice if it was on time at 12:30am home time. I fell asleep again and woke up around 1:25 when they dropped in my lap a Turkish salad with a little corned beef, an omelet Florentine, some mixed fruit and a couple rolls. Also as much orange juice as I can manage.

It is nice weather when we approach Munich. The clouds are in tall billowy piles. The plane seems to take a path around them and we have a little fun turbulence. We land and have to take a trolley to the terminal. This is our first time in Munich. The decoration has a sort of Erector Set feel with you able to see how things are put together and a lot of open air.

We go to the gate and Evelyn goes off to explore. They bring two older people in wheelchairs into the waiting room. They are not having a good time. It seems he is blind and she is confused. Together they make a whole person. I listen in. They are worried about the next flight. They did not get seats together. It is a long flight and they are worried about being separated for so long. I did not want to act without at least telling Evelyn, but I knew darn well that when Evelyn came back we would exchange seats with them. There wasn’t a chance Evelyn would say no. They were very appreciative. Heck, I just had 24 days almost constantly with Evelyn. And at work we share an office. With so nearly perfect a wife, who needs separation time? But this flight will give us each time to work on our logs.

Once again Lufthansa provides newspapers. I have been out of touch. Okay, there is rioting going on in Indonesia. The rioters are trying to get rid of Suharto. Until now I have been on their side. Not any more. Now I don’t particularly care what happens. It seems they have picked out the ethnic Chinese as being particularly responsible for Suharto being in office. They have drawn this conclusion based on two important pieces of evidence. First, the Chinese are different from Indonesians. Second, some Chinese are wealthier than some Indonesians are. So the Indonesians are burning Chinese alive. Not all the Indonesians, but they are not stopping the ones who are.

Once again Lufthansa is boarding by zone. Zones 1 to 4 are boarding. There are some Zone-6ers a little concerned. I tell them they are going to Chicago.

As soon as you get on the plane, even before take-off they came around with boxes of orange juice. Again I was half-awake by the time we took off. I must have slept for half an hour. That was intentional since I could not work on my log during take-off. When I was awake they served a snack of a drink (orange juice for me) and a pack of kangaroo-shaped crackers called Jumpys made mostly from mashed potato powder.

On the TV they ran a short film about the making of Amistad. They said that filming it required historical accuracy while showing John Quincy Adams standing in front of the Capitol Building complete with the dome it would not get until the Civil War. Nice accuracy.

Lunch was a smoked salmon salad, tortellini a roll, fruit compote, and some nice cheese.

The movie is The Jackal. It isn’t a bad film but with so good a film as The Day of the Jackal being based on the same novel there is no need for this stupid version. The first film is pure chess game. No gunfights, no chases, very little violence. It was just a search for a needle in a haystack and the clever way the needle hides. This is almost a parody of that film.

After, the film juice. And everybody gets a 35-gram bar of Toblerone Chocolate. After the film is a turkey, tomato, and cucumber sandwich. They are constantly either bringing food or picking it up. But I like it as an airline.

Landing was pretty much on time. Well, that’s it. That’s Turkey.

I am very fond of East Asia. But I think Turkey has been the best and certainly the most surprising country not on the Pacific Rim. I like the people, and much of the country is spectacular. It is not always an easy trip but it was one very worth making if for no other reason than to give me evidence against Turkophobe myths.

1998 Mark R. Leeper

Source: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/6960/turkey.htm