8-6-13. Pamukkale, Turkey
I had spent most of the night crushing mysterious bugs. They weren’t bedbugs; but since they were roughly the size and shape of a wood tick, and spattered my sheets with something that looked unpleasantly like blood when smashed, they weren’t exactly pleasant company either. When morning disclosed no new insects (the survivors having presumably taken up residence in my hair), I ate a quick breakfast and drove the few kilometers to Hierapolis. Though I knew I could not entirely avoid crowds – Pamukkale is one of Turkey’s premier attractions – I hoped to see the more important ruins before any tour groups arrived.
The ancient city of Hierapolis was built atop and along terraces made of travertine (a type of limestone). Even in antiquity, the hot mineral springs that created these terraces were thought to have special healing properties, and lured wealthy convalescents from across the Empire. As a result, Hierapolis (rather like Hot Springs, Arkansas) was disproportionately grandiose for its size. Though never a city of more than perhaps 20,000 people, it boasted two large theaters, two monumental agoras, and several grandiose bath complexes.
After the middle Byzantine period, there was no settlement near the site –and thus none of the stone robbing that obliterated so many ancient Anatolian cities. The ruins had, however, two powerful enemies. One, seismic activity, it had in common with most places in Turkey. The other was unique: once the city became too small and poor to maintain its drainage system, the mineral springs, spilling unchecked down the ancient streets, covered the site in up to ten feet of travertine. When the Italian archaeologists began excavating these parts of the city, they had to use jackhammers.
Hierapolis’ site, in other words, made and makes it absolutely unique. Although I saved the terraces for last, their handiwork was everywhere. At several points, I paused to admire an eight- or ten foot cliff of natural cement, in which the columns and roof tiles of some stoa or church hung fossilized.
The larger and better-preserved of Hierapolis’ two theaters was the first major monument on my agenda. Although the ancient theaters I have seen are beginning to blur together, this is an impressive building.
About a hundred meters above and roughly three hundred years after the neighboring theater, a monumental complex devoted to the Apostle Philip was constructed. Every year, thousands of pilgrims – the successors of those who came in previous centuries to the Temples of Apollo and Hades – processed over a long bridge and up a monumental staircase to the octagonal Martyrion, an elaborate shrine built to house the saint’s relics.
The main (north) necropolis lines one of the main access routes to the site, and so had plenty of other visitors. But it was spacious enough – well over a thousand distinct tombs, strung for more than a mile along the ancient highway – to handle a few tour groups and myself. Many of the larger tumuli and mausolea have been cleaned out and left open, allowing visitors to peer inside. The interior of a standard (wealthy) family tomb contained anywhere from one to three tiers of stone “couches,” on which the newly deceased were laid. Older bones were swept into an ossuary pit in the center to make room for new arrivals; a single ten by ten foot tomb might thus stay in use for centuries, and eventually contain upwards of a hundred individuals.
From the necropolis, I proceeded down the main processional avenue of the city, and poked around the North Agora. Although little of the basilica that once dominated this space remains – after it collapsed in a fourth-century earthquake, most of its stone was scavenged for the late antique city wall – enough survives to show how imposing its eighty foot high façade must once have been. The capitals of the columns along the first story of that facade were carved in the form of lions devouring cattle. Impressively odd.
The other ruins were less striking. Two substantial late antique churches have survived in fair condition – I ate my lunch in one – but are not otherwise remarkable. A more exceptional complex, the Plutonion, where sacrificial animals led into the sacred cave were “killed by the god” (i.e. suffocated by sulfurous fumes streaming from cracks in the travertine), was unfortunately inaccessible.
After visiting the museum, I finally arrived at the famous terraces. The white cliff of Pammukale stretches nearly a mile along the crest of a three-hundred foot ridge. The channels shift periodically – only a few sections of the cliff are active at any time – but the landscape is the same throughout, a sequence of chalk-white rivulets and shining basins.
As mentioned earlier, before the Italian archaeological mission began its work, the terraces had consumed much of the ancient city; and though much of Hierapolis has been freed, one can still walk beside ancient sarcophagi and mausolea half-buried in gleaming limestone. All ruins have been cleared, however, from the route visitors are instructed to take. Here, water has been channeled into a series of stepped pools to allow for both wading and (at a pinch) swimming.
By the time I arrived, literally hundreds of people were walking up and down the slippery limestone. The water that issues from the springs is hot, nearly blood heat; but it soon cools to a comfortable temperature. It is pale and cloudy with its burden of dissolved stone; whenever it settles, a paste-like film soon forms. If left to dry, this hardens into a rocky crust – and so the terraces grow. It was a pleasant walk up and down; but I was ready to put my shoes back on by the end. When not softened by water, limestone is not a forgiving surface. I shuffled back to the hostel, and to unequal combat with the insect kingdom.
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