The Ancient City of Pergamon

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July 28, 2008

Pergamon  

(Matt)

Note: Because we are seeing so many different places in Turkey with this hop-on-hop-off bus and because we want to keep track of where we are on the blog's interactive map, we are breaking the blog up by site, rather than by date, so that the map pins will show our route. This mean that there will be more blog entries in Turkey, though they may be quite short. Just FYI.

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After Troy, we headed for the ancient city of Pergamon, another that many have studied in school. I studied it in Classics, a required course at U.T. On the way, the bus driver asked if we could stop in a village so that he could see his family. We, of course, said it was fine. He drives a bus 8 days straight and gets 2 days off in Istanbul, while his family, a wife and two children, spend the summer living in an apartment along the Aegean Coast. His kids, about a 5 year old boy and a 9 year old girl, came running out to the bus enveloping our bus driver in hugs and kisses. His daughter was clearly emotional at seeing her father for such a short visit.

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He brought the kids on the bus and introduced them. He kissed his wife, who handed him a sack lunch, and drove off. The passengers on the bus--2 British girls, a Canadian couple from Toronto, another Canadian couple from Vancouver that immigrated there from India in 1958, and us--waved to the family as we left to go just a block further to see the bus driver's mother at her summer home. It turned out that she lives 6 months a year in Istanbul and 6 months on the Aegean. While we all sat on the bus, the Canadian, Mr. Singh, a Sikh and retired chemist originally from India, got out of the bus and began photographing everything, including the bus driver and his mother, like they were famous Greek ruins. It was hilarious. We really liked the Singhs. Mrs. Singh was a biochemist, and both were very nice. We ran into them again at Ephesus the next day.

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Pergamon was a powerful and highly cultured Greek city from the 3rd Century BC until the 1st Century AD. Alexander the Great left one of his generals in charge of Pergamon, and the kingdom flourished. The whole of Pergamon was given to the Romans to avoid civil war, and there are Roman structures on the site as well, including a Roman bath. Much of Pergamon is on display in Berlin, Germany.

Pergamon is in a better state of preservation or reconstruction than Troy. We toured the Acropolis, which is at the top of a hill overlooking the small town of Bergama. It was very hot at this time of the day, but the views from the top were great. There were reconstructed columns from the Greek and the Roman periods and a huge sloping theatre overlooking the valley. I ran down to the bottom of the theatre and demonstrated how sound carried up to the top of the hill. We then walked through the Asclepion, the remains of a famous medical school that apparently focused on treating mental patients and its library that is supposed to have rivalled that of Alexandria in Egypt. It has been really great to follow the Greeks and Romans around their conquered territories and see their handiwork, first in Egypt, then in Jordan, and now in Turkey. These were impressive empires to be certain.

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Modernly, the major agricultural products in Bergama, near the ruins, include grapes, olives trees, one of which can supposedly support a family, cotton, and peaches. Carpet weaving is also huge, having been started by nomadic Turks from Middle Asia. In addition, there are gold and marble quarries in Bergama.

(Amber)

A word about Turkish carpets.......Because of the sky high inflation Turkey, some people buy carpets as investments. Good quality, older carpets tend to hold their value better in some cases than cash. And some rural girls and women rely on their income from carpet weaving as their sole means of support, as for some, formal education and work outside the home just aren't a reality. So buying Turkish carpets (if you know what you're doing and can avoid scams), can be a very good deal on a number of fronts. Plus, carpets are gorgeous here and available everywhere.

We, however, are bad shoppers...but most importantly we've been on an endless vacation that clearly hasn't been free, so the Williams piggy has no funds for floor coverings of any kind. Sadly, we'll be coming home carpetless. Anyone who feels sorry for us, please submit donations to "Matt and Amber's endless vacation." We take cash, IOUs, PayPal....goods and services of any sort. You name it.

Random thoughts....

(Matt)

• Turkish computers are incredibly fast, the fastest of anywhere we have been on this trip. It makes getting photos up a breeze.
• Individual trays of chocolate pudding with coconut sprinkles on top are very popular everywhere. Creme brulee type pudding is popular too.
• We are pleased to be eating raw veggies, including lettuce, without fear.....a trend that began in Jordan.
• There are more Americans here, but the majority of tourists here that we have encountered are Australian or British.

(Amber)

• Bus drivers drive very carefully. All of their licenses automatically hook into a system that's monitored by the police. At any point, police can print out a sheet of who's been speeding along with all sorts of other stats. Buses also beep incessantly when you go over the speed limit. Definitely means that roads seems safer than anywhere we've been (and this is the understatement of the century), though we make terrible time. Don't think that would go over in the States!

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