It's a Sign!

Here are some signs you can look at while I'm organizing my Galilee photos.

More ways Turkey was Ruined

Continuing where I left off: 

Even though it's in Turkey, Ephesus is one of the best preserved ancient Greek cities. It's probably because they were the inventors of Legos.

 

And champions of Jenga.

 

Priene was a city build by a mountain on the coast, but now the bay is filled in with silt. One neat thing about the city is how much of the original material is still around.  Most cities have little remaining because the ancient people were good at recycling.

 

Here we see sections of columns.  This style of column is studier than a the monolith one but doesn't look as nice.  This region is earthquake prone.

 

In Sardis the gymnasium was next to the synagogue.  This became a problem when Jews spent more time working out than worshipping. It's one of the seven cities mentioned in the Book of Revelation.

 

This is Thyatira, a city you've probably never heard of.  It's one of the seven cities mentioned in Revelation. Not much left.

 

Constantine's palace in Nicea (modern Iznik) held the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.  Most of the building is now submerged in Lake Nicea.  Here's a Nicea view.

Bad connection here

The internet is really spotty right now but I'll try to get more posts up soon.

Everything was in Ruins

Literally.  Most of the sites we toured in western Turkey were inhabited in New Testament times and some of them were even mentioned in the book of Revelation.  So come aboard for a tour of ancient Turkey.

  

This is the city of Troy, the setting of Homer's Iliad.  If you haven't read the book here's a summary:  Helen (a Greek) is kidnapped by the Trojans.  The Greeks rescue Helen and sack Troy.  The end.

 

Like Jericho, this site has many layers where civilizations built on top of each other.

  

The next site is one most people don't even know about.  Assos was a city built on a hill overlooking the Aegean Sea. Paul stopped here on his third mission in 57 AD.

 

Pergamon is one of the 7 churches mentioned in Revelation.  Notice how green it is in March.

 

The theater has the steepest seating of any ancient city.  Just look at the first tier!

 

The Great Altar at Pergamon is... not here.  It's actually in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.  The Ottomans traded it with the Germans (they were allies in WW1) in exchange for some roads.  Not a very fair trade.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Out of all the cities we visited on the Turkey trip, we spent the most time in Instanbul.  We flew into the city at night and saw the city all lit up.  Even during the off season, this square was full of people.  Some people say Istanbul is a city that never sleeps.

 

Istanbul has lots of mosques.  One of the most famous ones is known as the Blue Mosque because of the color of the interior tile work.  There was some controversy when it was built.  The design had 6 minarets, the same number as the Grand Mosque in Mecca.  The solution:  add a minaret to the Meccan mosque.  Makes perfect sense.

 

One of the most dramatic places we went was the Basilica Cistern.  This cistern has 336 columns and can hold 2,800,000 cubic feet of water.  The massive room is really dark and creepy music plays softly over the speakers.

 

The Grand Bazaar lived up to its name.  Hundred of shops line the halls and stalls sell everything from spices to carpets.

 

My favorite place in Istanbul was Hagia Sophia.  This 6th century Byzantine church had the largest dome in the world for 1000 years.  The Ottomans turned the church into a mosque, (thus the round panels with Arabic script), until it became a museum in 1935.  I liked Hagia Sophia so much that I decided to include a picture of myself.

Turkish Terrain

Turkey is a huge country, with a land area larger than Texas.  It spans two continents, Europe and Asia, and has four seasons. Turkey is really mountainous, so it takes a while to drive anywhere.  We only traveled to the western part but here are a few pictures of the countryside.

Off to Turkey

I'm going to be in Turkey for a week, so no new entries till after the 11th.

Friday Flurry

Today it snowed but since we live in the same building that we have class, school wasn't canceled. Everyone went outside during the break (we get a 10 minute break when our classes are 2 hours long).  Snow is rare in Jerusalem.  A lot of it had melted by the time class ended.