Ephesus

Something I don't remember

Bus to Ephesus

We went to Ephesus. We woke up early and went on a dolmus to town.  A dolmus is a little bus.  The word dolmus means squeezed.  And sometimes we get squeezed when the driver lets too many people get on.  Then we waited on a bus. When we got on the bus we went to a Turkish delight shop and we ate halva.  The chocolate halva was the best. 

Glad Tutu brought the umbrella.  It was hot.

Then we went to ancient city Ephesus.  Ephesus is really big but the guide said it was only 13% uncovered so far.  Most of the town is still under ground. Ephesus one of the best preserved ruins.  It was hot walking in Ephesus.

Restrooms.  Water was in trench
by his foot to wash bottoms.

We saw ancient restrooms called latrines.  The restrooms were only for Roman men.  The men all went in there together.  Gross!  


In the cold the slaves had to sit on the marble seats and warm the seats for their masters.  There was water flowing in a little trench in front of the seats.  The men or their slaves would wet sponges in that water and then clean themselves after using the restroom.  Sometimes the slaves would clean their masters bottoms and sometimes the rich Roman man would do it himself.  But the slave always had to clean the sponge afterward.  YUCK!  The slaves and women could not use the latrines.  They had to use the fields.  I'm glad we don't have those rules today.

Hercules Gate.  It was in middle of the main road.  The columns made the
road get narrow so wagons could not go down this road.  It was for
walking people.

Library of Celsus

We saw the Library of Celsus, which means Library of Caesar.  It was the first and largest library in the world.  It was a huge building.  There were only 2 libraries in the ancient world.  This one and one in Alexandria Egypt.  Tutu said there also was one in China but the guide did not talk about that one.








Ephesus also was the first place in the world to start a bank.  The guide called it the Bank of Asia.  He said Ephesus was the financial capital of the world.  Kind of like New York City today.  Rome was the government capital but Ephesus was the money capital.

Ephesus had largest theater in ancient world

Down the road from the library was the largest theater in the ancient world.  The sound worked really good.  Another man in our tour group stood on the stage area and said "Friends, Romans, Countrymen.  Lend me your ears."  Zachary sat in seats in the middle about halfway as high as they would let you go, and he said he could hear the man good.  The guide said that the theater was even larger.  They know there are 2 more levels of seating that have not been dug up yet and put back in place.




The first advertisements in the world were in Ephesus.  The first advertisement was for brothels, which is disgusting.  Tutu told me what a brothel was.  The guide didn't tell us.  Stones were put in the street near the harbor.  They put the woman's name and a drawing of her on the stone.  They also put a heart that was broken and a circle that looked like money coins.  And a big footprint.  They had different shape footprints for different women.  If a sailor had a broken heart and some money, he could find a stone of a women he liked and follow the footprints to that woman's house or brothel and have her company to ease his broken heart.  Papa said that later they invented addresses and phone numbers.  I made a drawing of how the guide said these advertisements looked.

                                                                                                                                                                                        Tutu and I saw the House of the Virgin Mary, also called Mother Goddess Mary's House.  Virgin Mary came to Ephesus with St. John after Jesus was crucified.  She lived there for the rest of her life.  The red bricks and stones were the original house.  The regular stones were added to rebuild it.  I wrote a prayer note and sprinkled it with holy water and put it on the stone wall with the other notes left by other people.  Her house was a small chapel with no bed or table.  I don't see how she could have lived there with no bed and no table.  We washed our hands in holy water.  There were policemen with big guns.  The guide said the policemen were there to keep away crazy terrorists with silly religious ideas.  We did not have a camera to take pictures because Papa kept it.  Papa and Zach went to the Ephesus Museum while we went to Virgin Mary's house.  Here is a link to a page that shows what the house looks like and tells some things about it.
House of the Virgin Mary