Hellas: a New Yorker's Journey

A few pictures from our last excursion before we go: this time to the very bottom of the attic peninsula: the legendary Cape Sounion and temple of Poseidon.

A few last pictures from Cappadocia.  Yes, that’s my own little excavation site.  Just a few early Christian potsherds, nothing more…  Then, onto Selcuk and Ephesos the next day.  I’m sorry but that’s all the pictures I have, because after that, my camera ran out of battery just as I was about to take the picture of the glorious library facade.  Oh well.  Enjoy

More pictures from Cappadocia.  I had so many more incredible pictures but I couldn’t include them for lack of space…  Oh well.  These are from more Christian sites.  We climbed through ruins built into these rock chimneys leftover from volcanic activity millions of years ago.  Caesar, the Cypriot girls Helena and Marie and I chased each other through the ancient caves and stumbled upon artifacts, wall frescoes, cross carvings and splendid natural imagery—all to the sounds of Qoranic recitation from loud speakers pinned to the local mosques’ minarets: the sounds of the desert piercing through the airwaves filling the valley like wine in a Greek amphora.  

Breathtaking images from our hike through Lihara Valley, the popular inspiration for George Lucas’ Beggar’s Canyon.  Early Christians lived everywhere in Cappadocia and this is no exception.  This was certainly the most exciting natural portion of my trip.  The monolithic rock formations and deep water way through the cliffs brought me to awe.  Dad, I know you are usually opposed to using the word ‘awesome,’ but I think it can describe this place.  Early Christians gauged their dwellings from the bare rock here.  Notice the pigeon nests they raised for food, manure and carrying messages (carrier pigeons).  It was here that I really got to know Caesar, the 53 year old Buenos Aires man who needed a surrogate son for a day.  I also met two Cypriot girls who knew both Greek and Turkish—very useful for conversing with the locals and practicing my own Greek.  Notice the ancient Christian frescoes on the dilapidated rock church.  Unbelievable.

The next day, I caught an overnight bus to Goreme, a tiny village in Cappadocia, the so-called “jewel” of Turkey (really because of it’s tourist GDP…)  These are pictures of Goreme.  The “fairy chimneys” really are just that: but no fairies live in them, but people do and they (like the cliff dwellings of Santorini) rent them out to tourists for huge sums.  I could only stay for a night, but the hostel I stayed in was so booked up for it’s dorm that I got to stay the night inside of on of those charmingly mysterious fairy chimneys in a huge room just for me.  it was quite cold, but I didn’t have to pay extra!  

Well then we explored an underground city.  The pictures in the middle are haunting depictions of a place once known as being inhabited by some of the earliest most ancient residents of Cappadocia: the late Bronze age Hittites—all the way through the Phyrgians, Lydians and all of whom were constantly escaping repeating persecution from whoever was in power of Anatolia at the time.  Finally, early Christians lived in this underground city to escape persecution from the Romans.  I even found an early Christian potsherd!  There were special rooms for food storage, livestock, and ventilation shafts and wells.  You can see in one of the pictures, I stand at the bottom of a well engulfed in light.  «THE RING»

Later that day, Ali and I visited Justinian’s Basilica Cistern, built in 532 right under the very heart of the city at the height of Byzantine power in the sixth century.  Very eerie.  Notice the fish in the water.  Some of them were huge!  Also notice the Byzantine columns and capitals as well as the mystery of the Medusa heads…  The mystery goes like this:

Medusa, a sea nymph, was the most beautiful of the three gorgon sisters. She was courted by Poseidon, and made love to him in a temple of Athena.

Furious, Athena transformed Medusa into a monstrous chthonic beast with snakes instead of hair, whose frightening face could turn onlookers to stone. She was beheaded while sleeping by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon until giving it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield.

Having coupled with Poseidon previously, two beings sprang from her body when she was beheaded. One, Pegasus, was a winged horse later tamed by Bellerophon to help him kill the chimera. The other, Chrysaor of the Golden Sword, remains relatively unknown today.

In classical antiquity and today, the image of the head of Medusa finds expression in the evil-averting device.

(http://www.istanbultrails.com/2008/06/the-basilica-cistern-the-coolest-spot-in-town/)

Anyway, to this day, no one knows why the Byzantines placed one Medusa head on it’s side and the other upside down.  It was used as a symbol on pillars and shields and sword hilts to ward off evil spirits, obviously even into Late Roman and Christian times.  It’s also been widely speculated that these Medusa heads were in fact spolia taken from an earlier Roman or Greek building.

Well after our time in the Basilica Cistern, Ali and I returned, I booked my trip around Turkey with a travel agent got a haircut, and we proceeded to Taksim for a night of drinking, Dancing and other diversions…  The second to last picture is the view of the city from the upstairs terrace bar we were in.  The final picture is the goodbye picture when we bid farewell.  From the right is Ali, Bruna, Joanna behind her, Rosiya in front, Hona (Joanna’s older sister) in the red, smiling Suwa and I.  They returned back to Georgia to keep teaching English until June, and I to finish my exploration of Turkey.

Pictures from the Istanbul Archaeology museum.  I’m in heaven.  First, a bunch of Assysrian and Babylonian relics!  That’s a statue of an early Assyrian king, then the authentic code of Hammurabi, another Assyrian head, and a stone relief of Assyrian charioteers.  Like I said, heaven.  Then, 3 pictures of the so-called “Alexander’s Sarcophagus” which has subsequently been proven to not belong to Alexander the Great himself, but a closer royal friend of his in Asia Minor at the time.  Notice the special plastic case it’s in.  Finally, a Byzantine relic of the “Milyon” marker.

After the Hagia Sofia, we were led to the Golden Horn by a Dapper Georgian Turk with an translator.  That’s a whole other story…. We evaded a kidnapping thanks to Bruna’s Lebanese knowledge of the Arabic language and proceeded to a new hostel in Gulhane where we stayed for 2 nights.  That night, Bruna, Joana and I got Nargile (hookah) right across the street with the local brew (a halfway decent pilsner called “Efes”) and enjoyed the traditional Turkish pasttime until we were just about ready to pass out ourselves.  The following day, we went to the Hippodrome.  That’s Theodosius’ so-called Egyptian obelisk (which I heavily doubt is authentic) and then we enter the blue mosque….the other MONUMENTAL edifice in downtown Istanbul.  Enjoy.

At first, a glimpse of the Theodosian walls, built over 1500 years ago by Theodosius I the Great.  (He actually wasn’t that great—he employed ruthless barbarians to destroy classical and Hellenistic Pagan Greek civilization…)  Anyway, then the rest of the pictures are from the Hagia Sofia.  I explored it with newfound friends I met—Ali, a Pakistani Canadian, self-described “brown person” studying engineering and Bruna, a talented Lebanese girl living in DC who knew a SLEW of different languages.  We had a running joke about Post-modernism for 3 days.  I also screwed around with some camera settings.  Enjoy