We drove like mad to get so that we could see the ancient capital of Asia Minor, Ephesus. This is the town of "love is gentle, love is kind," Paul [Saint] letter to the Ephesians. Apparently, this is also where Mary, mother of Jesus, is rumored to have spent her remaining years (which I don't believe, but you gotta love a bit of Christian mythology). To start my day right, I ended up chatting with an older gentlemen, dressed in his Sunday best on a Tuesday, from Kokomo, Indiana, who was a Bible conspiracy theorist who believed that "Turkey will play a key role in the end of days." The key, he says is in the last verse of the 1st chapter, the first verse of the 2nd chapter, and the 10th verse of the 3rd chapter. I'm writing this down just in case he is right and I need to quickly reference from where the end is coming so that I can run in the other direction.
We got on our way and made it to Ephesus. WOW! I have never seen such amazing ruins outside of Rome. I am so happy again that I listened to Rick Steves' recent podcast which touched upon Ephesus. His podcast helped bring the whole journey to life. They measure the size of an ancient city by estimating its theatre capacity and multiplying it by 10. As a result, they estimate Ephesus' population at 250,000. The theatre itself is an acoustical marvel. Some sound engineer was on Rick's program, and he said that the people of Ephesus figured out the same amazing acoustics as a sound engineer would today - if not better. You can stand in the middle of the theatre and speak in your dramatic Shakespearean voice and a person sitting on the top of the 25,000 capacity theatre can hear you. Obviously we tried it. It was amazing!!! I went to the top and Pallavi called out to me and did "Friends, Romans, Countryman," and I swear it sounded like she was right behind me.
The people of Ephesus primarily made their wealth from the selling of deity icons. So, when Paul [Saint] went to go and speak at the theatre, the people in the crowd basically booed him off, saying "Great is Artemis," since this whole 1 God, 0 icon Christianity thing would put them out of business. That's why Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians!
You really can see why Ephesus was important and a great city. Only 15% of the city is excavated, and yet, you can see a complete city. You can see the exact layout, the basic structure of the town, visit the library or the merchants. You can see how they put anti-slip devices on the marble streets and the terracotta piping for the aqueduct. You can see the Library of Celsus, which was the 3rd largest library in the Ancient World, holding 12,000 scrolls. It was incredible.
Then, just 1 km down the road from Ephesus, what do you have? The ruins of the Temple of Artemis, one of the ancient wonders of the world. There isn't much to see in terms of ruins, but there is enough to be in awe of the size and scale of the place. You can see how it would have been a wonder of the world.
Incredible.
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