The ruins of Priene and Didyma: Oh those Greeks could build!

Wednesday, May 11

Today Yavuz, our guide, met us at breakfast at the hotel at 9 AM. We’re the only guests and their personalized attention is greatly appreciated.  We had lots of Turkish meze, cheese, olives, tomatoes and cucumbers, fresh bread, apple cake and fried donuts  – as well as eggs to order.  We’re off to a great start with this fuel.  Yesterday, we didn’t walk as many steps as on the weekend (8000, but my pedometer says I climbed the equivalent of 49 floors!!)

Incredible breakfast at the Hotel Nisanyan in Sirince

I asked Yavuz if we might be able to change the plans a bit.  We are supposed to see the ruins of three Ionian cities : Priene, Miletus and Didyma.  I wondered if maybe we could skip one and go to see the Aegean instead ?  Maybe at the national park I had read about ?  He thought it would be possible.  I also asked if we could have a picnic and stop at a store to buy the food, rather than go to a restaurant.  He thought we could skip Miletus, as it has similarities to others and it’s main attraction is the grid layout and the theater.  I was so pleased that we would be able to make a few adjustments – this was shaping up to be an even better day than yesterday!  And that’s hard to beat.  We needed to be back to the hotel by 5:30 PM today for our Turkish cooking lesson with Ferda and Okan.

We drove first to the ruins at Priene.  The drive took a while, although it was through beautiful pastoral countryside that was easy on the eyes and psyche.  We talked with Yavuz about his family and where he grew up – in the city of Rize, which is in northeast Turkey, on the Black Sea.  He says it is very wet and moist because of the surrounding mountains and the sea – and that his region grows 90% of the tea in Turkey.  His father has a boat and they like to go fishing – he showed us photos, as his father actually built the boat and it’s beautiful.  His sister is a lawyer in Ankara, married to a doctor and they have 2 children, a girl and a boy, which he loves to pieces. He enjoys living in Kusadasi – it’s less hectic and less expensive than Istanbul.

Olive trees cover the hills along our drive to Priene

The city walls of Priene

Priene  was an ancient Greek city of Ionia, built as a port at the mouth of the Maeander River, at the base of an steep hill called Mycale.  Now, because the river has silted the port, it’s actually inland and looks out on a very fertile alluvial farm plain.  We had to climb up a bit to get to the city site – which meant we had great views looking out across the plain.  It’s absolutely remote – only one other small group – and quite romantic in a Byron-explore-the continent type of way.  Towering pines, poppies sprinkled everywhere, hollyhocks, birds trilling in the trees, distant views of tractors plowing fields leaving a smoky dust trail behind.

Yavuz says architects and city planners like to visit this city, because it is one of the first designed by the Greek architect Hippodomus created with a grid  plan.  They come to take photos of the perfectly aligned crossroads.  It had around 4 to 5 thousand inhabitants. The city was arranged into four districts, the political district with the bouleuterion and the prytaneion, the cultural district containing the theatre, the commercial agora and  the religious district which contained the Temple of Athena.  There was also a temple to our friend Asklepios, to Egyptian gods, a small Christian basilica that was built around the 5^th or 6^th century, and impressively constructed city walls.

The famous crossroads at Priene - the first city grid plan by architect Hippodomus

The bouleuterion (senate chamber) is especially impressive, with a square shape and seating for a few hundred people.  The Athena temple is mostly in ruins, but it has 5 reconstructed ionic columns, recreated in the 1960’s to illustrate the dimensions. The remains of the columns, capitals and beams are all over the site, with drums from the columns scattered like pennies across the ground.  Each column drum has a circle in the center and Yavuz explained that it was used to help carry them into place.  A rod or stick could be inserted and then slaves could  carry them by supporting them on their shoulders between them.  And then the drums were stacked for columns, lead was poured down the center to help support the upright position. Alexander the Great was known to have donated to the construction of the temple, based on an inscription found on site.

The bouleuterion - senate chamber

Temple of Athena - the pieces are here, just waiting for a benefactor to help rebuild.

Ruins of a 4th century Christian basilica

Temple of Athena with Mt. Mycelia in the background - an acropolis was located at the top

The small theater is well preserved and reconstructed, somewhat different in design than others we’ve seen.  There is a raised orchestra/stage area which is ringed by about 6 carved marble arm chairs, which served as seats of honor.  Michael tried one out, and couldn’t decide whether we’d earned a thumbs up or thumbs down for our activities on stage.

Priene's theater built into the hillside

A well deserved thumbs up!

Marble chairs of honor ring the orchestra stage

When we returned to our van, Mr. Bekir – our new driver for the day – had picked some ripe fruit to share with us.  Both kinds were unusual to us – a small yellow-orange fruit about the size of a lira coin call mus and white mulberries.  Both were mildly sweet and a pleasant mid day snack.

Next we drove to Didyma to see the temple of Apollo.  This was another of the 12 Ionian federated cities – but there had been a temple and an oracle of Apollo in Didyma that predated the Ionian federation.  The Apollo cult and fame of the oracle was strong – it was second only to the one at Delphi in the ancient world. The first temple and oracle were destroyed by the Persians around 500 BC.  Alexander the Great helped support the rebuilding of the temple and oracle and if the plans for the new temple were completed, it would have been the largest in the world.

The Temple and Oracle of Apollo at Didyma

The sheer size of it is overwhelming.  Only 3 columns have been reconstructed, but they’re huge. About 75 of the total 122 columns were actually completed The pronaos (section leading into the temple) has multiple rows of four columns deep – it looks like a forest – or perhaps a giant chess set. The column bases in the pronaos have interesting frieze carvings of people, mythological creatures and floral and geometric designs.

Michael walking among the columns of the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma

There are many examples of interesting carvings on the site – including two Medusa heads, a lion sphinx and a griffin.  Yavuz told us the myth of Medusa – as seriously sad tale.  She was a beautiful woman serving in a temple of Athena who was raped in the temple by a god.  Athena was so angry about her temple being defiled that she turned Medusa into a terrible gorgon with snakes for hair and eyes that would turn you into stone if you met her gaze.  Clearly, her mythology is strong, as she is an architectural element that we have seen here in Didyma, in Ephesus and repurposed in the Basilica cistern in Istanbul.

Two examples of Medusa carvings

Our guide, Yavuz, with lion sphinx talking about the mythology of the Greek gods

Bull's head and griffins

Having gawked sufficiently at all the ancient rubble, Michael and I were ready for a trip to the beach – at least to see the Aegean, even if we weren’t going to be able to take a swim.  But first, we needed to find a market to buy food for our picnic. And away we went.