Ruin sights in Europe
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Ephesus
Ancient Ephesus was a great trading city and a centre for the cult of Cybele, the Anatolian fertility goddess. Under the influence of the Ionians, Cybele became Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt and the moon, and a fabulous temple was built in her honour. When the Romans took over, Artemis became Diana and Ephesus became the Roman provincial capital.
Of Turkey's hundreds of ancient cities and classical ruins, Ephesus is the grandest and best preserved. Indeed, it's the spunkiest classical city on the Mediterranean and the ideal place to get a feel for what life was like in Roman times.
In 356 BC the Temple of Cybele/Artemis was destroyed in a fire set by Herostratus,…
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Basilica of St John
Even despite a century of restoration, this once-great basilica of Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r 527–65) is still but a skeleton of its former self. Nevertheless, it makes for a pleasant stroll and warm-up to Ayasuluk Fortress, and the hilltop views are excellent.
The on-site information panel's plan and drawing highlight the building's original grandeur, as do the marble steps and monumental gate. Over time, earthquakes and attackers ruined Justinian's church, which was inspired by the local connection with St John, who reportedly visited Ephesus twice. The first (between AD 37 and AD 48) was with the Virgin Mary; the second (in AD 95) was when he wrote his gospel, on…
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Hierapolis
Hierapolis' location atop the tourist magnet that is the 'Cotton Castle' seems to have blessed it with a budget rather more ample than that of most Turkish archaeological sites. The orderly paved pathways, well-trimmed hedges, flower-filled expanses, wooden bridge walkways and array of shady park benches make Hierapolis far more genteel than Ephesus (or anywhere else in Turkey). Wild and raw it is not, but for those wishing, or needing, to see an ancient site on flat and well-maintained terrain, this is the place.
The curvaceous mountaintop means that the city's ruins are relatively compact, with the main sites easily accessible. The ruins evoke life in a bygone era, in…
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Fórum Romá
The northwest half of Fòrum Romà was occupied by a judicial basilica (where legal disputes were settled), from where the rest of the forum stretched downhill to the southwest. Linked to the site by a footbridge is another excavated area, which includes a stretch of Roman street. The discovery in 2006 of remains of the foundations of a temple to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva (the major triumvirate of gods at the time of the Roman republic) suggests the forum was much bigger and more important than had previously been assumed.
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Church of the Virgin Mary
The Ephesus car park is ringed with çay bahçesis (tea houses), restaurants and souvenir shops, and to the right of the road are the ruins of the Church of the Virgin Mary, also called the Double Church. The original building was a museum, a Hall of the Muses - a place for lectures, teaching and debates. Destroyed by fire, it was rebuilt as a church in the 4th century. Later it served as the site of the third Ecumenical Council (AD 431) which condemned the Nestorian heresy.
Over the centuries several other churches were built here, somewhat obscuring the original layout.
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Agora
The ancient Agora, built for Alexander the Great, was ruined in an earthquake in AD 178, but rebuilt soon after by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Colonnades of reconstructed Corinthian columns, vaulted chambers and arches give you a good idea of what a Roman bazaar must have looked like. Later, a Muslim cemetery was built on the site and many of the old tombstones can be seen around the perimeter of the Agora. The site is entered on the south side, just off Gazi Osman Paşa Bulvarı.
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Templo de Debod
Yes, that is an Egyptian temple in downtown Madrid. No matter which way you look at it, there’s something incongruous about finding the Templo de Debod in the Parque de la Montaña northwest of Plaza de España. The temple was saved from the rising waters of Lake Nasser in southern Egypt when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser built the Aswan High Dam. After 1968 it was sent block by block to Spain as a gesture of thanks to Spanish archaeologists in the Unesco team that worked to save the monuments that would otherwise have disappeared forever.
Begun in 2200 BC and completed over many centuries, the temple was dedicated to the god Amon of Thebes, about 20km south of…
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Acropolis
The road up to the Acropolis winds 5km from the Red Basilica to a car park (TL3) at the top, with some souvenir and refreshment stands nearby. A short cut shaves a couple of kilometres from the walk; opposite the Red Basilica, take Mahmut Şevket Paşa Sokak, the narrow lane between Aklar Gıda groceries and a carpet shop, which leads to the Lower Agora.
A line of rather faded (and in some places completely obliterated) blue dots marks a suggested route around the main structures, which include the library as well as the marble-columned Temple of Trajan, built during the reigns of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian and used to worship them as well as Zeus. It's the only Roman…
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Mausoleum
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum was the greatest achievement of Carian King Mausolus (r 376–353 BC). Although Caria had existed for at least 700 years, with a capital in Mylasa (Milas), Mausolus moved it to Halicarnassus. Before his death, the king had planned his own tomb, to be designed by Pythius (architect of Priene's Temple of Athena). When Mausolus finally died, his wife (and sister), Artemisia, oversaw the completion of this enormous, white-marble tomb topped by stepped pyramids.
Incredibly, the Mausoleum stood relatively intact until the Knights Hospitallers needed building material for the Castle of St Peter; between 1406 and 1522,…
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Library of Celsus
The early 2nd-century AD governor of Asia Minor, Celsus Polemaeanus, was commemorated in this magnificent library. As a Greek and Latin inscription on the front staircase attests, Celsus' son, Consul Tiberius Julius Aquila, built it in 114 to honour his deceased father, who was buried under the library's western side.
Capable of holding 12,000 scrolls in its wall niches, the Celsus was the third-largest ancient library (after Alexandria and Pergamum). The valuable texts were protected from temperature and humidity extremes by a 1m gap between the inner and outer walls. Originally built as part of a complex, the library looks bigger than it actually is: the convex facade…
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Plutonium
Near the Hierapolis Archaeology Museum stand a ruined Byzantine church and the foundations of a Temple of Apollo. As at Didyma and Delphi, the temple had an oracle tended by eunuch priests. The source of inspiration was an adjoining spring called the Plutonium, dedicated to Pluto, god of the underworld.
As if to confirm its direct line to Hades, the spring gave off toxic vapours, lethal to all but the priests, who would demonstrate its powers by tossing small animals and birds in to watch them die.
To find the spring, walk up towards the Roman theatre, enter the first gate in the fence on the right, then follow the path down to the right. To the left, in front of the big,…
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Ruinas Romanas de Valeria
The fascinating archaeological site Ruinas Romanas de Valeria is located just outside the village of Valeria, 34km south of Cuenca. It is hardly known to tourists, which equals that rare evocative pleasure of wandering around the site of a former sizeable Roman town without the distraction of coach tours and school groups. The location is fittingly sublime, set amid wild meadows and flanked by dramatic gorges. There are also remains of a medieval castle crowning the hillside. Stretching below this, dating from 82 BC, are remains of a forum (the best preserved in Spain), as well as a basilica, four reservoirs (used for water supply), urban streets and the well-preserved…
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Great Theatre
At the eastern end of Harbour St is the Great Theatre, reconstructed by the Romans between AD 41 and AD 117. The first theatre on the site dated from the Hellenistic city of Lysimachus, and many features of the original building were incorporated into the Roman structure, including the ingenious design of the cavea (seating area), capable of holding 25,000 people.
Each successive range of seating up from the stage is pitched more steeply than the one below, thereby improving the view and acoustics for spectators in the upper seats. Among other modifications, the Romans enlarged the stage, pitched it towards the audience and built a three-storey decorative stage wall…
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Aya Sofya
Originally a great Justinianic church, Aya Sofya is now a crumbling, neglected ruin slumbering in a rose garden. The building encompasses ruins of three different structures. A mosaic floor and mural of Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist survive from the original church. Destroyed by a 1065 earthquake, it was later rebuilt with the mosaics set into the walls. The Ottomans made it a mosque, but a 16th-century fire again destroyed it. Reconstruction supervised by the great architect Mimar Sinan added İznik tiles to the decoration.
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Karakuş Tümülüs
Highway D360, marked for Nemrut Dağı Milli Parkı , starts in Kahta next to the Hotel Kommagene. After a few kilometres, the road forks left 1.5km to Karakuş Tümülüs, built in 36 BC. A handful of columns ring the mound – there were more, but the limestone blocks were used by the Romans to build the Cendere Bridge. An eagle tops a column at the car park, a lion tops another around the mound, and a third has an inscribed slab explaining that the burial mound holds female relatives of King Mithridates II.
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Piscina Mirabilis
You'll need to call ahead to visit the world's largest Roman cistern, but it's well worth the effort to experience this underrated ancient wonder. Bathed in an eerie light and featuring 48 soaring pillars and a barrel-vaulted ceiling, the so-called 'Marvellous Pool' is more 'subterranean cathedral' that 'giant water tank'. The cistern was an Augustan-era creation, its 12,600 cubic metre water supply serving the military fleet at nearby Miseno. Fresh water flowed into the cistern from the Serino river aqueduct, which was then raised up to the terrace with hydraulic engines, exiting through doors in the central nave. Engineers still marvel at its sophistication.
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Temple of Demeter
To the north of the castle a small road leads quickly down to the superbly sited foundations of the Temple of Demeter (Ceres to the Romans), the goddess of fertility and agriculture. In classical times it was the centre of a massive fertility cult, and in 480 BC the tyrant Gelon built a temple here lest his plans for the capture of Syracuse be foiled by a couple of bad harvests. The temple is also supposed to have featured a statue of King Triptolemus, the only mortal to witness the rape of Demeter's daughter Persephone by the Hades, the god of the underworld. In return for spilling the beans, Demeter taught Triptolemus the secrets of agriculture, from which Enna has…
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Kinsarvik
The small U-shaped patch of greenery opposite the Kinsarvik tourist office is all that remains of the former Viking port. Kinsarvik also boats one of Norway's oldest stone churches. First built in around 1180, it was restored in the 1960s and the walls still bear traces of lime-and-chalk paintings that depict the weighing of souls by Michael the Archangel with the devil trying to weigh down the scales.
According to local legend, the church was built by Scottish invaders on the site of an earlier stave church. Kinsarvik also offers an appealing access trail past the cooling Husedalen waterfalls, along what's known as the Monk's Stairway and onto the network of tracks…
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Church of the Koimesis
If you cut back inside the walls from the ruins of the minor Horoz (Rooster) Gate you will come to the scant ruins of the Church of the Koimesis (c AD 800) on the western side of Kaymakam S Taşkın Sokak. Only some foundations remain, but the church was once famous as the burial place of the Byzantine emperor Theodore I (Lascaris).
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Sweetheart Abbey
The shattered, red-sandstone remnants of this 13th-century Cistercian abbey stand in stark contrast to the manicured lawns surrounding them. The abbey, the last of the major monasteries to be established in Scotland, was founded by Devorgilla of Galloway in 1273 in honour of her dead husband John Balliol (with whom she had founded Balliol College, Oxford). On his death, she had his heart embalmed and carried it with her until she died 22 years later. She and the heart were buried by the altar – hence the name.
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Desyatynna Church ruins
Up Andriyivsky uzviz past St Andrew's Church, look for a dense cluster of vendors selling Dynamo Kyiv & other sports paraphernalia on the right. The fenced-off archaeological site behind them covers the foundations of the Desyatynna Church ruins. Prince Volodymyr ordered the church built in 989 and devoted 10% of his income to it, hence the name (desyatyn means 'one-tenth'). The church collapsed under the weight of the people who took refuge on its roof during the Mongol sacking of Kyiv in 1240.
Today the Moscow and Kyiv patriarchates of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are fighting over the fate of the site - the latter wants to rebuild the church.
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Melrose Abbey
Perhaps the most interesting of all the great Border abbeys, the red-sandstone Melrose Abbey was repeatedly destroyed by the English in the 14th century. The remaining broken shell is pure Gothic and the ruins are famous for their decorative stonework – see if you can glimpse the pig gargoyle playing the bagpipes on the roof. You can climb to the top for tremendous views.
The abbey was founded by David I in 1136 for Cistercian monks from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. It was rebuilt by Robert the Bruce, whose heart is buried here. The ruins date from the 14th and 15th centuries, and were repaired by Sir Walter Scott in the 19th century.
The adjoining museum has many fine…
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Abbey Remains
Just beyond the Great Gate is a peaceful garden where the Great Court was once a hive of activity. Just beyond is a dovecote that marks the only remains of the Abbot's Palace. The best-conserved remains of this once mighty abbey church are part of the western front and Samson Tower, which were borrowed by houses built into them. In front of Samson Tower is a beautiful statue of St Edmund by Dame Elisabeth Frink (1976).
The rest of the abbey spreads eastward like a ragged skeleton, with various lumps and pillars hinting at its immense size. Just north of the church lie more clustered remains of monastic buildings.
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Temple of Artemis
Just beyond Selçuk's western extremities, in an empty field, stands a solitary reconstructed pillar. All that remains of the massive Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it's now just a 20-second photo opportunity.
At its height, the structure had 127 columns; today, the only way to get any sense of this grandeur is to see the better-preserved Temple of Apollo, in Didyma (it had 122 columns originally).
Artemis' Temple underwent many reconstructions, being damaged by flooding and various invaders over a 1000-year lifespan. But it was always rebuilt – a sign of the great love and attachment Ephesians felt for their fertility avatar, the cult of…
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Upper Ephesus
First you'll encounter the Varius Baths – as in other ancient cities, situated at the main entrances so that visitors could wash before entering. Greco-Roman baths also had a social function as a meeting and massage destination.
Next comes the Upper Agora, a large square used for legislation and local political talk. The structure was originally flanked by grand columns and filled with polished marble. In the middle was a small Temple of Isis – a testament to the strong cultural and trade connections between Ephesus and Alexandria in Egypt. The agora's columns would later be reused for a Christian basilica, which was a typically Byzantine three-nave structure with a…
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