Odds and Ends

OK, some things along the way caught my fancy - apropos of nothing in particular.  Some made me laugh at the time, some made me wonder, some caused a chuckle during editing and some were just pretty odd!

At the Hagia Sophia we saw a line of people before a column. As we saw nothing of this sort anywhere else in the Hagia, I walked over to see the attraction.   It wasn't until later, at home while doing this Turkey vacation section that I found out.  As you'll read below, this the the Sweating Column.

People put their thumb finger into the hole and turn their hand circular and make a wish which they think will come true if their finger comes out wet. Some believe that the moisture heals eye diseases. In reality, the column is of the type of stone which absorbs moisture easily.  My thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 

At Ephesus we found multiple example of something I had only seen once, in Rome.  It appears that citizens (maybe teenagers even then?) carved or scratched game boards in the marble curbs lining the street.  Here are several such games.

In Rome, almost everywhere you looked, as well as Greece, particularly at the Olympics area, one finds marble block with "foot prints" in them.  I saw only a very few in Ephesus, and here is one. 

Whenever one explores history, or is around men, there seems to be some reason to bring up prostitution - the "Oldest Profession".   So, it comes as no particular surprise to find mention in / on the streets of Ephesus.  Please view below an advertisement for one of the professional there. 

A larger view perhaps brings out the details.  Carved in lower right corner is a "picture" of what's for sale - a woman looking out a window, leaning on the sill.

To the left of the what's for sale, we find where to look.  With the left foot carved into the curb stone, we now know to look on the left-hand side of the street for the lady in the window.  

Having determined what's for sale, and where to find it, all that remains is determining the cost.  The pile of coins in the upper right-hand corner seems to indicate is ain't cheap.

I'm always fascinated by old script carved in statues, walls, headstones and the like.  While I can never really read them, sometimes one can decipher enough to understand a bit.  None-the-less, give me some carved words and I'll take a picture.

This script below caught my attention.  Its written in at least three steps (maybe four - I wish I had time to really look into it,  in two, perhaps three languages.  The upper most section is Latin.   The next section, below the crack, appears to be Greek. however, I really have no idea: both could be Latin or Greek, BUT they were written a different times by different hands. The third section is in Aramaic. It appears that this writer either made an error which he erased by chiseling out that portion, OR he put something in, like a name, that a later viewer found objectionable, and that person then "erased" that portion.   Interesting.

Down below and around the corner, there were few tourists wondering around so I decided to take the path less traveled.   I stumbled upon two curiosities.

First, the Crusaders wandered though Ephesus at one time or another.  They had a habit of leaving a bit of graffiti behind - the Crusader Cross.  Behind a statue I found such a cross.  I wish I had been bright enough to take a picture of the entire statue.  Perhaps I'll find it later. 

Forever fascinated with the "biggest, this, the "tallest" that, the  "heaviest", the "smallest", and such, I'm a sucker whenever those term are used.   So as we came down the hill from Mary's House, Hakan mentioned this is the largest or tallest statue of Mary in the world.  Hence, a picture of same.

OK, this just struck me as funny.  Again at Ephesus I got another odd picture.  We had walked a bit and the day was warm, so when we went off the main road we walked into a huge latrine.   It must have had twenty seats (holes in the marble).  It seems only natural for all the leg-weary in our group to take a seat and rest a moment.  This the largest number of people sitting on toilets I've ever seen - much less a mixed crowd of men and women.

In Cappadocia there were weird and wonderful things to see on every hand.  After a while a person could be overwhelmed by the unusual.  Even in this state, something's were still very, very unusual, if not extraordinary.   Below please view the strangest police station in Turkey - if not the world. 

My Mystery (see below after reading this)

The  strangest sight I found on the entire trip.   Again in Ephesus, even further down below the main street, and a number of feet beyond the Crusader Cross, there was a grotto type place under an arch, inset in the wall , under the street.  It was closed or covered with canvas.  Curiosity drove me to peek through the split between the two pieces of canvas covering the bars comprising the locked doors.  While it was dark, I could make out a white figure back against the wall.  

With the flash set on my camera I took a set of pictures.  You'll see a white marble statue in the rear of the room.  There appears to be another door behind it.  I believe the figure is female - but can't point out a specific or exact reason why. 

She appears to be standing on a black marble base. Beside her, on the floor appears to be a broken marble plaque, but I got no detail in my pictures.  On the wall there appears to be a piece of a plaque, and another smaller carving.

I have no idea who she might be - why she's at Ephesus - why she's hidden - why there is no explanation for her.  

I think she looks Egyptian, of all things.  Don't ask why; I have no idea, but I do recall seeing figures of Gods with multiple breast in Egypt.  I don't know how, nor do I have a means to do a search based upon a figure or picture.  However I'd be forever grateful if someone seeing this could make an identification.

I put six of the clearer pictures below to offer her up for an ID.

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MYSTERY SOLVED!!

While doing research on Ephesus I literally stumbled across a picture which struck me as very, very familiar.  Following up on that picture, I solved my "mystery".  The remaining mystery is just why she is kept in this damp tunnel - and not on display! 

Artemis was a Greek Goddess, the virginal huntress and twin of Apollo, who supplanted the Titan Selene as goddess of the Moon. Of the Olympian goddesses who inherited aspects of the Great Goddess of Crete, Athena was more honored than Artemis at Athens. 

At Ephesus, a goddess whom the Greeks associated with Artemis was passionately venerated in an archaic, certainly pre-Hellenic Cult image  that was carved of wood and kept decorated with jewelry. Robert Fleischer identified as decorations of the primitive xoanon the changeable features that since Minucius nd Jerome's Christian attacks on pagan popular religion had been read as many breasts or "eggs" — denoting her fertility (others interpret the objects to represent the testicles of sacrificed bulls that would have been strung on the image, with similar meaning). 

Most similar to Near-Eastern and Egyptian deities, and least similar to Greek ones, her body and legs are enclosed within a tapering pillar-like term, from which her feet protrude. On the coins minted at Ephesus, the apparently many-breasted goddess wears a mural crown (like a city's walls), an attribute of Cybele. 

On the coins she rests either arm on a staff formed of entwined serpents or of a stack of ouroboroi, the eternal serpent with its tail in its mouth. Something the Lady of Ephesus had in common with Cybele was that each was served by temple slave-women, or hierodus (hiero "holy", doule "female slave"), under the direction of a priestess who inherited her role, attended by a college of eunuch priests called "Megabyzoi and also by young virgins.

Last, but never least

I have no idea how I took this.  Evidently I was attempting to take a picture of something on the hill side from within the bus.  As too often the case, I got a reflection from the window.  Normally these ruin the shot and I simply cuss a bit and delete the picture.  

This one caught my eye.  I really like it and wish I could come up with a real "artsy-fartsy" name for it.  Until then is just a reflection of the love of my life during one of the very best trips of my life,.