Day One: Troy

            While it wasn’t the most exciting sight in terms of preserved and excavated remains, Troy was an interesting introduction to archaeology’s feats and follies. The tour guide introduced us to common themes in the excavation of Turkish historical sites: foreign archaeologists; stolen or misplaced treasures; layers of ruins from different historical periods; and an emphasis on not only excavated findings, but also outside references to the city in classical literature and public documents.

Obviously, the appeal of Troy is unique in that it has been immortalized by Homer’s The Illiad and later in popular culture. Similar to the tragic love stories and purported miracles surrounding Leander’s tower in Istanbul, Troy stands out in the minds of especially Western audiences; Homer’s works are a staple in American classrooms and entertainment, evidenced by the recent movie Troy starring Brad Pitt. Of course, these myths have little historical validity, but they point to larger possible events, such as, in the case of Troy, a large war between the Achaeans and the Trojans during Troy VII. Although the expert opinion of these archaeologists do not contain the intrigue of Homer’s epic poems—love, jealousy, pride, sorrow, and the wrath of the gods, the history behind the site renews the beauty of Homeric language and themes; in so many ways, it shows humans’ strong inclination towards fantastical storytelling. More recently, archaeologists have discovered other documents that allude to the existence of Troy and even the war between the Trojans and the Achaeans, most notably Hittite texts that refer to Troy as Wilusa (Troy). Thus, in so many words, Homeric fiction gave birth to archaeological inquiry and discovery.

The power of Troy seems to have bewitched even the events surrounding the first excavation of the site by Heinrich Schliemann. The stories behind “King Priam’s gold,” treasures smuggled out of the country to Germany and then stolen by the Russians in the 1945 Soviet invasion of Berlin, are captivating in themselves (Troy). Schliemann’s activities in Troy, in addition to those of other archaeologists, made me think about the strong European and more recently American presence in archaeological digs. Although the educational resources countries such as Turkey have provided for Western scholars are invaluable, it is unfortunate that Turkey could not further capitalize upon and retain these same resources for their own benefit. Archaeological museums throughout Europe and America house treasures found in Turkey, while Turkey’s own aspiring archaeologists could profit from the funds garnered by these treasures. However, judging from the sites we saw in our five-day trip and the archaeological museums I visited in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey has seen fewer Schliemann-esque antics in recent years, and it holds a very impressive collection of artifacts from many civilizations.

Day Two: Alevi village, Pergamon (Bergama), Asklepion

            After attending two lectures at METU, one on urbanization in Turkey and the other on Turkish kinship systems, I have since reevaluated my experience in the Alevi village next to Altinoluk. The lectures, in addition to the tour guide’s speech, did not give much of a description of the Alevi people and their origins, so I did some of my own research, however limited. Outsiders often classify the Alevi population as a Shiite group. However, given the statistics on the religious makeup of Turkey, many Alevis identify as Sunni. According to my lectures, Alevis are considered to be about 20 to 30 percent of the population, while the CIA World Factbook online classifies the 99.8 percent of the Muslim population in Turkey to be “mostly Sunni.” Some Alevis might identify as Sunni to avoid persecution, since many still associate Alevis with leftism and communism, as I will discuss later. In addition, some sects of Sufism that align themselves with Sunni Islam incorporate Alevi beliefs, so this detail may also account for this statistical discrepancy. However, the Alevis differ greatly from the mainstream practice of both Sunni and Shiite Islam. Alevi traditions date back to ancient Turkic shamanism and pre-Islamic religions of the near East. Belief in Allah is actually varied, some identifying Allah as the good in humans and not a universal creator. Alevis rarely worship in mosques. Instead, they congregate in meeting houses, where both women and men gather. In comparison with the rest of Turkey’s Sunni population, they have higher literacy rates, education, and female employment, in addition to lower fertility rates. (Alevi)

            These facts aside, many Alevi people have migrated to cities, so the quaint village that we saw near the Aegean may not be as “typical” as the tour guide suggested. The ethnographic museum, not the town, preserved traditional attire and housing methods; in so many words, Alevi life has been modernized and urbanized. In fact, the conflict between traditional Sunnis and Alevis in cities were at the heart of politics before the military coup of the 1980s, after which Alevis were victims of an anti-leftist backlash and Islamic fundamentalist violence. Alevis were very active in secular left-wing politics, ranging from affiliation with the Republican People’s Party to a struggle for the “Socialist People’s Republic of Alevistan.” (Alevi) The clash between Alevis and mainstream Sunnis in cities continues to be an issue in Turkish urbanization.

Day Three: Sardis

            As the capital of the neo-Hittite kingdom of Lydia and later a Roman and Byzantine city, Sardis is an interesting testament to the interaction between religions in ancient Turkey. The kingdom derived its name from its first king Lydos, believed to have descended from the gods Attis and Cybele (Lydia). Cybele is an important figure among Phrygians as well, as evidenced by her temple at Midas Sehri, which we also visited. However, most of the excavated structures we saw were from the Roman and Byzantine period, when Sardis was the “seat of a proconsul under the Roman Empire” and later the “metropolis of the province Lydia” under the Roman and Byzantine Empires (Sardis).

            The seven churches of Asia are Christian communities to which Saint John the Evangelist writes a letter, as instructed by Jesus, in the Book of Revelation. In this book, the author implies that the population of Sardis, home to one of the seven churches of Asia, was “notoriously soft and fainthearted” (Sardis). However, in addition to this apparent community of Christians, Sardis was home to a substantial and well-respected Jewish community, notably during the late-Roman and early Byzantine period. The synagogue at Sardis, in addition to the many shops which belonged to Jewish owners, was rather impressive, especially for an empire which often did not tolerate even slight deviations within the Christian tradition, let alone other religions. Freely alludes to these trends in chapters on the iconoclastic crisis and debates in Ecumenical Councils, after and during which dissenting opinions were squelched. In fact, this synagogue helped uncover more information about the Jewish Diaspora in the late Roman and early Byzantine Empires. Coupled with inscriptions from Aphrodisias, the inscriptions in the synagogue suggested an attitude of general support for these Jewish communities throughout many parts of the empires. Interestingly enough, the current Jewish “Diaspora,” many of them in America, funded excavation and restoration of the synagogue, which adds a special twist to the presence of foreigners in Turkish excavation.

Day Four: Pamukkale, Aphrodisias

            Aphrodisias was the most impressive Greek site on the trip, with its amazingly preserved temple, theatre, council house, and stadium. Of course, like the other ruins, the extant structures showed what everyday life was like during Hellenistic and Roman periods. Known for its marble quarries and its prominent school for sculptors, Aphrodisias housed many wonderful sculptures of gods, goddesses, and emperors, in addition to a temple dedicated to Aphrodite, from which Aphrodisias got its name. Since I do not know much about archaeology, I did not take note of specific architectural styles or fully appreciate the importance of the structures still standing. However, I again noticed the prevalence of foreign, mostly European or American universities and archaeologists, at Turkish historical sites. For example, a French engineer first discovered Aphrodisias in 1904, and professors from New York University and Oxford University now oversee the current excavation of the site (Aphrodisias). Also, given the site’s history of destruction from earthquakes, I was struck by a strange dilemma faced by archaeologists: whether to leave sites preserved in the soil or to risk their destruction and erosion by uncovering them. This dilemma often pushes archaeologists to bring some excavated artifacts to museums, sometimes in other countries, where they can both be preserved and examined.

            Of course, as in many other historical sites in Turkey, the juxtaposition of religious influences in Aphrodisias was especially interesting. The Christian basilica, built from the remains of temple to Aphrodite, sat as a testament to the rise and fall of Paganism and Christianity in Turkey. Close to the gladiator stadium, where many Christians were forced to fight, the basilica once expressed the dominance of Christianity and its bitterness towards paganism. Now, it sits in a country with a huge Muslim majority. Also, archaeologists discovered a Greek inscription at Aphrodisias that lists donations made by “theosebeis,” or Godfearers. From comparative evidence found in the Sardis synagogue, which we also visited, and the New Testament, Godfearers were “probably interested gentiles who attached themselves to the Jewish community, supporting and perhaps frequenting the synagogue” (Aphrodisias). Thus, Aphrodisias is a testament to the interaction of religions and religious peoples in Turkey—pagans, Jews, Christians—in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

Day Five: Midas Sehri

Visiting Midas Sehri, nestled in the Phrygian valley, was by far my favorite experience on the trip. An unscheduled stop off the beaten path, the temple and its surroundings were breathtakingly beautiful and refreshingly strange. Midas Sehri stood as a Phrygian holy site—later frequented by ancient Roman pilgrims and monks—dedicated to the goddess Cybele, a “deification of the Earth mother.” As a goddess of “caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, and wild animals (especially lions and bees),” Cybele is the Roman equivalent of Magna Mater, or Great Mother, and also embodies the fertile earth (Cybele).

I especially enjoyed the Roman monastery at Midas Sehri—a strange natural rock formation laden with a network of caves. Four natural forts overlooked the site, where Roman soldiers would protect monks and pilgrims. Dedicated to 40 transvestite, castrated virgins, the monastery led me to inquire more about the region’s so-called “mystery religions,” which sometimes evolved into early Christian cultism. For example, castration and transvestitism were typical practices for zealous followers of Cybele, and these practices later evolved into a mystery religion that most likely paralleled the rebirth of Cybele’s son Attis to that of Jesus Christ:

Cybele's most ecstatic followers were males who ritually castrated themselves, after which they were given women's clothing and assumed "female" identities, who were referred to by the third century commentator Callimachus in the feminine Gallai, and who other contemporary commentators in ancient Greece and Rome referred to as Gallos or Galli. Her priestesses led the people in orgiastic ceremonies with wild music, drumming, dancing and drink. She was associated with the mystery religion concerning her son, Attis, who was castrated and resurrected. (Cybele)

            Professor Shaw briefly mentioned the mystery religion surrounding Cybele and her son Attis. One ceremony involved a ditch in the ground, where followers of the mystery religion would be ritually reborn. A disciple would strip and then sit in a ditch, covered by a grate, while others slaughtered a bull above him. He would then emerge from the ditch as a newborn, naked and bloody. A fan of the religiously strange, I found these practices intensely interesting.

WORKS CITED

“Alevi.” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alevi> 19 September 2006.

“Aphrodisias.” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodisias> 20 September 2006.

“Cybele.” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele> 20 September 2006.

“Sardis.” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardis> 20 September 2006.

“Troy.” Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy> 19 September 2006.

“Turkey.” The CIA World Factbook. <https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tu.html> 20 September 2006.