Day Eleven: Aphrodisias, Laodicea, and Hierapolis

Dr. Evans described my feelings today perfectly: "sensory overload." At this point in the trip I'm really tired and would love to be in my own bed, with my own pillows, and with my own shower. I've seen so much marble that when I get back to the states I'm going to freak out and not understand why I can't find any naked marble statues of the Greco-Roman gods. I'm pretty much certain of it. While I love it here and I'm learning so much and still can't believe I'm in a foreign country: I'm kind of ready to be home. The days are running together because of all that we've seen. 

One more beautiful day though, although it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I'm not excited.

Anyway. We started the day at Aphrodisias (after a three hour long bus ride where I napped. so wonderful.) which, obviously, was the main city of Aphrodite. While it didn't have any biblical significance except for being an ancient city during this time, it was still a pretty neat place. It's highly renowned for the city's most beautiful sculptures as the sculptures are cut out of a very fine and malleable marble that can be carved into almost anything. Oh those sculptures were really pretty. And there were so many of them! I couldn't quite believe how many statues came from this city especially since over half had yet to be dug up (I see at trend here.) 

The coolest part about Aphrodisias was the stadium that the archaeologists found in near mint condition (relatively speaking as it has been buried for many years). It could sit 300,000 people in the stadium. It was so neat to walk around the stadium; it really just looked like an elongated version of a football stadium with stone seats instead of bleachers and there weren't any markers on the field. Dr. Evans pointed out that hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives were lost in that stadium which was a slightly sobering thought as the Roman government were exceptionally brutal, but it didn't take away from the coolness of the actual stadium. The kids decided to go into the stadium's chariot entrance and pick up icicles and have pretend javelin and sword fights; it was a pretty fun place. They also had most of Aphrodite's temple reconstructed which was beautiful, but still not my favorite. 

After eating lunch at this cutesy little restaurant and playing with their most adorable puppy (she was only a few weeks old mind you; still waddling around and falling over) we drove to Laodicea. Now, Laodicea is the last of the 7 revelatory churches and is known as the "luke warm" church. This city gets this reputation because they had running water going throughout the city through these pipes; however within this specific city they mixed their hot water and cold water (ta da! luke warm water!). Ephesus, in comparison, had running water but did not mix the two temperatures. However, we only spent about thirty minutes at Laodicea and most of it was still being worked on. 

I think my favorite part was an unknown temple which was still in ruins, but the neat archaeologists were super clever. What happened was that we got to walk up these stairs through a partly renovated gate "into the temple" and onto a floor of glass. Essentially we got to look down into the dirt in order to look at the work of the archaeologists on the site of the temple and see the different ruined columns, marble pieces, and archways that littered the floor. It was real neat; I hadn't seen anything quite like it yet. 

Hierapolis was, also, not a biblical city (not from my recollection at least; I could be wrong), but it was a most necessary stop. While we were all exhausted and just wanted to be back at the hotel, I'm glad we went. What was absolutely amazing about this site were the hot springs. On the edge of the city cliffs of naturally build up calcium made a mountain flat enough for the ancient peoples to build Hierapolis on top of it. That was pretty beautiful, but what made it neat was that underneath the city is a pool of hot springs which let out over the calcium cliffs, creating pools of super warm water. In fact they let us go out there without shoes on! Just think, my friends had just picked icicles at Aphrodisias a few hours earlier and now we were walking barefoot in the middle of January in Turkey where it had snowed just earlier that week! Anyway, while some parts were freezing, it was mostly warm and oh so beautiful with the sunset fading behind the mountains in the distance. The girls (Paige, Tiffany, Rachel and her mother) and I spent so much time in this place that we had to cut the tour of Hierapolis short and we only got to see its theater. While the theater was cool, we've seen a lot of theaters. 

I mean. A LOT of theaters. 

Well, it's close to bed time and we only have one day left. 

Love y'all.