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After breakfast and chatting in English and our half baked French with fellow travellers, we explored the town of Selcuk. It has its share of tourist shops with sales people who stand or sit out the front and greet you, but none of the pressure of Egypt. This is an agricultural area (peaches, grapes, tomatoes, strawberries, mixed crops) and so the township, while catering for tourists, has a life quite separate to that industry. Ringed by hills and the sea, the valley and town are very picturesque. A few streets in Selcuk have been turned into pedestrian walkways around the squares in the town centre. Parts of the Roman aqueduct cross the town, with piers and arches rising above the modern buildings. Storks were spring cleaning their annual nests on top of each high point and on the tops of some ancient columns.We passed two striking sculptures. The first shows a man whose head is split into two halves with a bird emerging from the top of his head. He is blindfolded and gagged. In 1993, the journalist Ugur Mumcu was killed in a car bomb attack, with the perpetrators never having been found. He was a champion of democracy. He was a writer and investigative journalist who wrote a lot about corruption, terrorism and organised crime; no wonder he had enemies. The people of the town erected the statue and named a street after him, in honour of his views on democracy and his stance that, although he could be silenced, nothing could stop his ideas from spreading. The second sculpture was much simpler, with a relief portrait and his words about democracy and freedom of speech and birds flying from the top.
The Museum of Ephesus displayed the items found from the Roman era and it was more meaningful to us because we had already visited the site. Diagrams showing what the place would have been like originally and the positions of the items, or pictures of the items in use, were very helpful. 
The stone carvings and statues were well preserved, deep and detailed, often showing scenes from mythology such as Odysseus and his friends killing Plythemus, the Cyclops. 
Many of the statues were in excellent condition and must have been protected somehow from the impact of the earthquakes. Artemis (Dianna for the Romans) was venerated in particular, with her affinity to fertility being of major importance. Several statues depicted her with many eggs on her and animals of all kinds on her skirt. 
The status of women was high in Ephesus, with girls receiving education and their work as artists and thinkers being recognised.The arrival of tour groups with commentaries that echoed very loudly from room to room changed the atmosphere and suggested what to expect in tourist areas when the season comes into full swing. We had just stepped into the gladiator room when it was closing time for lunch, but luckily the ticket allowed for a return after the break.
Climbing Ayasulek Hill, we arrived at the place where St John wrote his gospel and where his tomb was built. In the 6th century the Emperor Justinian built a basilica there which was absolutely enormous. It would be the sixth largest church in the world today if it was in one piece. It is so big that it is difficult to grasp it as a whole. A model was so different to the remains that it was hard to imagine where the enormous standing pillars and arches would have been. The walls surrounding the basilica were classic examples of reusing building materials from earlier buildings. While we were admiring the baptistery with its steps down from either end, I overheard a tour guide explaining that the candidates for baptism would be oiled all over so that they would be too slippery for anyone to hold and thus prevent their baptism! He claimed that that was still the practice in Greek Orthodox churches today.
We met a Texan who had sold up his house and had been travelling for 18 months. He and his wife plan to keep travelling on the proceeds while they are fit and well. A young French man prayed at the tomb of Saint John, a tour group of Americans spread out across the site and four elderly Indians listened intently to their English speaking guide.After lunch and donning longer pants so that I could visit a mosque later, we returned to the museum. Gladiators were usually slaves or prisoners and there were two types - the ones who got no training and whose first experience would be in the ring, and the ones who attended the gladiator schools and were trained mentally and physically. The professional gladiators belonged to the school and were hired out for events, mostly to add spectacle and to denote the importance of a person or an occasion. For Romans, it was not just a bloodthirsty sport but had nobility because the gladiator was willing to face his death with dignity, and that flowed on to the populace accepting death and their own mortality as part of life. It was likened to car racing where there is a real risk of fatalities. It was both noble and shameful, depending on whether you were schooled or not. At one event involving prisoners, three quarters had deliberately killed each other in the waiting rooms prior to going on stage, and others committed suicide by putting their heads in the spokes of the transport wagon on the way, because of the shame it brought them. Conversely, laws were introduced to prevent members of the nobility volunteering to be gladiators, since the death of so many of the ruling class who sought nobility, fame and an honourable death, was deleterious to the community.
Gladiatorial combat ended in several ways - an outright victory with the defeated person dead, a victory called by the organiser because of serious injury, a victory in which the vanquished could be pardoned and not slain on the spot it the crowd willed it or a mutual laying down of arms. The caption said that the thumbs down sign was not a ‘kill him’ message but was used to convey the message that a gladiator was already dead. Thumbs up meant a pardon, and it was the populace who had the power here since an organiser going against the will of the people may not have survived either politically or literally. Gladiators had a one in three chance of surviving their first two years and after that, experience and celebrity status were on their side. The display of weapons and protective gear was grisly, as were the drawings representing skeletons found in the gladiator cemetery which showed the cause of death eg three holes in the head from a trident. The depictions of gladiators in stonework had none of the delicate artistry of other works of the period, showing them as stiff, squat, astronaut-looking figures.
The temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the Ancient world, was nearby. The column and block strewn levelled area showed that it had indeed been 160 metres long, but only one stork-topped column remains. A turtle scuttled into the grass while the young Frenchman meditated at the possible site of an altar. He told me later that he tries to tune in to the vibes of holy places and that it is really difficult to do unless he blocks out the presence of other people around him. I had noted that he had left when a bus load of people, with 15 minutes to look around and consider purchasing shepherd’s pipes and embroidered tablecloths, swamped the site with their presence and voices.We passed the ancient baths on the way to the mosque.
The Romans were my sort of people in that they always included a library as a component of the complex of warm, hot and cold rooms and pools. Keith was in his element taking photos for his cat file, with many half grown kittens curling around his legs.
The mosque of Isa Bey Camii was built in 1375 by the Emir of Aydin. It includes some pillars and items from other buildings and has a cleansing fountain in an enormous walled and garden filled courtyard. We entered the newly renovated mosque which is beautiful in its design, decorations and exquisite multitude of Turkish carpets.The Imam acted as jovial tour guide and salesman, with CDs of Sufi music, miniature silk carpet cards and religious items for sale, as well as a line in writing names and messages in Arabic on cards. All proceeds were for the mosque.
Here we met a Sydney woman, Lynda, who was to be our companion for the afternoon.The three of us set off down a lane, past simple houses towards the countryside. After a while we were walking between peach orchards with camomile forming a carpet under the trees. Just as the track deteriorated into an impassable swamp, two men and a boy drove up on their tractor, pulling a little trailer laden with sacks of animal feed. Offered a lift over the puddle, we climbed on and were driven quite a bit further to their farm.
Lynda was expressing some alarm, since we seemed to have been kidnapped and language difficulties prevented us asking about what was happening. When we alighted, they unlocked a gate and indicated that we should go inside. We were not alarmed, being more used to country friendliness and understood at once that we were being offered refreshments. After examining the two varieties of goats and their feed (mostly clover), we sat down to glasses of wine, and green plums presented by the boy. Lynda had a dictionary and looked up some words that helped in starting off communication. The father had a tiny bit of English but went off to tend the goats, leaving us to be entertained by his cousin and his son.
Once again, the will to express friendliness and respect and to share information overcame the language barrier and we chatted and drew pictures together for nearly an hour. Meanwhile Keith and Lynda were discussing Lynda’s life experiences in English, which was a bit awkward for Keith because he felt rude if he listened and rude if he didn’t. The father returned and presented us all with branches of lilac blooms. The cousin invited us to visit if we came to his area and explained the bus system to get there. They guided us to a path through the orchards, which eventually led us to the road beside the Temple of Artemis.This experience will remain a highlight of our trip. The togetherness of the father, son and cousin, the sharing of a task that teaches the boy skills for his future, the genuine friendliness and hospitality to total strangers, the example the men set in their behaviour, the inclusion of the son in all aspects of the visit, and the time given to, and pleasure taken in, being kind to others were inspirational.
We had a cup of delicious apple tea at Lynda’s hotel and chatted some more before her pre-ordered meal and others she knew arrived and we departed.
The church of St John is a classic case of reusing materials from previous buildings. The round stones in this wall are sections of columns from an earlier building on the site.
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