OK, my little cherubs - this one is for you. Who was punished by Zeus for daring to steal the power to make fire from the Gods, and was punished by being left to have his liver pecked out by an eagle every night? That's right - Prometheus. Well, here he is, in all his glory. Check out that face detail - tragic, isn't it? We happened upon this, and other gorgeous reliefs (including one of Leda and the Swan) at our visit to Aphrodisias. Does that name sound familiar? Well, of course it should: every stop we make is like turning the page in Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I saw what remains of an altar to Zeus today (but the altar and the carvings were stolen and taken to Germany many years ago), a temple to Apollo and images of Medusa yesterday, and tomorrow we're going to... get ready: Troy! Yes, that fabled city of Homeric lore - it does exist! I better polish off my copy of The Odyssey (thank you, Mr. DeForest)...
Here's another highlight of Aphrodisias from the other day - the Hippodrome. This picture can't do justice to what I saw - the enormity of this place. It seats something like 200,000 people?!? !?! It's almost 3 football fields in length (minus endzones). What you see is the section where chariot races were held; the gladiator section is out of frame, as is the entrance from whence the lions emerged.
So we've left the seaside town of Kusadasi and we've moved further north to Assos. We'll only be here one night, and then after one more night in Cannakale we'll make our way to the Dardenelles and then crossing into Istanbul! And then it's a whole week of the Ottoman Empire, architecture, and Islamic art as we go from Koptapi Palace to the Haga Sophia. WOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment