Pre-Pandemic: Church of Mary Ephesus

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On a rainy day, I sketched the Church of the Virgin Mary in Ephesus (Acarlar, 35920 Selçuk/İzmir, Turkey) which is an ancient Christian cathedral dedicated to the Theotokos. It was erected in the 3rd century within an earlier building. Architecturally, the structure can be described as a basilica with a nave and two aisles. Today, the best-preserved section of the structure is a cylindrical baptistery, located in the northern part of the atrium. In the central part of the baptistery, there was a pool, where the baptized people could be fully immersed in water.

Mary, the mother of Christ, was not the first woman honored in Ephesus. The city had a long tradition of religious worship of female deities. The first of them had been a local Anatolian goddess Kybele who was later merged with the Greek goddess Artemis. The temple erected to Artemis was once considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

According to the local tradition, the mother of Christ arrived at Ephesus together with Saint John and spent here the last years of her life. Although there is no decisive historical evidence to support this belief, there are some premises supporting it. The most significant one is the documented presence of Saint John in Ephesus, where he started writing his gospel. He was also buried in this city, and the basilica was erected in his name. As Christ entrusted him to take care of his mother, before dying on the cross.

Pre-Pandemic: Selçuk Turkey

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Tourists relax in the upstairs lounge of Hotel Bella in Selçuk Turkey. Selçuk is a town near Izmir, in western Turkey. It’s the gateway to Ephesus, a vast, ancient city with the remains of a large theater and the Library of Celsus. South is the House of Virgin Mary, a domed chapel and religious shrine. Near Selçuk, a marble column is one of a few remains of the Temple of Artemis. The Ephesus Museum has more items from the temple, plus other artifacts excavated from the Ephesus site.

Hotel Bella is just a 3 minute walk to the Basilica of St. John. The Basilica was constructed by Justinian I in the 6th century. It stands over the believed burial site of John the Apostle and was modeled after the now lost Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.

Pre-Pandemic: Turkey

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This is the Anatolian Houses Hotel (Cevizler Sk, 50180 Göreme Belediyesi/Nevşehir Merkez/Nevşehir Merkez/Nevşehir, Turkey). The rooms were carved into the limestone cliffs with stone rooms as additions. This stone living room was connected via arched doorways into a bedroom that was carved into the cliff. The bathroom, also deep inside the cliff was a few steps up from the bedroom and had a large tub and plenty of pockets in the limestone walls to store towels and toiletries. Tiny windows carved in the walls overlooked the village below.

Another bathroom had deep holes in the floor covered in glass that fell away into the depths of the rock. The arched doorways between rooms had a definite disadvantage in that they were carved by someone who is less than 5 feet tall. I banged my head really hard one time as I was rushing to get out for a day of frantic sight seeing.

COVID-19 was confirmed to have reached Turkey on 11 March 2020, after a man who had returned to Turkey from Europe, tested positive. Turkey also surpassed China in confirmed total cases on 20 April 2020. As of June 29, 2020 Turkey had 5,115 deaths from COVID-19. ON April 11, 2020 the country had it’s highest single day of new cases with 5,138 cases in one day. The Government of Turkey announced that weekend curfews are in effect for all 81 provinces. The wearing of masks is required. A fine of 900 Turkish Lira will be imposed on those who do not comply. On 2 June, the Turkish Parliament resumed full activities for the first time in 48 days since a hiatus was declared due to the pandemic.

The Parliament started working under “new norms” including enhanced hygiene measures, use of masks and social distancing. Turkish parliament accepted a bill which could enable the release of up to 100,000 prisoners, including people responsible for deaths. However, the law excludes Turkey’s around 50,000 political prisoners, including journalists and human rights defenders, who are said to remain jailed despite overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions already posing severe health threat.

Pre-Pademic: Turkey

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In Mustafapasa, Turkey I noticed this sign of Americanization, a Coke delivery truck and could not resist dong a sketch. It once had a mixed population, Greeks and Karamanlides (Turkish speaking Christians) and Muslim Turks. In 1924 after the Greco Turkish war, the population exchange agreement between Greece and Turkey, forced Greeks and Karamanlides to leave the town for Nea Sinasos a town in the northern part of the island of Euboea in Greece. Most of the exchange was based not on language or ethnicity, but upon religious identity. An estimated  384,000 Greeks were killed from 1914 to 1918, and 264,000 from 1920 to 1922. The total number reaching about 648,000.

Fast forward to 2020. Coke has pulled over 700 million dollars in advertising from Facebook because the social media platform does not limit hate speech. Trump wrote: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase used by a Miami police chief in the 1960s and widely interpreted as a violent threat against protesters. Facebook employees have condemned CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to leave up President Trump’s post. Twitter hid the same post for glorifying violence. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took full responsibility for the decision.

After weeks of a staunch hands-off approach, Zuckerberg on Friday June 26, 2020 reversed course as a parade of brands began severing their ties with the company. Zuckerberg said Facebook will put warning labels on posts that break its rules, even if they are newsworthy, opening the door to potentially labeling posts by Trump. Facebook rules say speech that inspires or incites violence is not allowed on its platform. The company has removed over 300 Boogaloo hate groups form the platform. It is a feeble start to address a much bigger problem.

If you ignore or deny history you are bound to repeat it.

Anatolian Houses Hotel in Görome Turkey.

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I stopped at the Anatolian Houses Hotel (Cevizler Sk, 50180 Göreme Belediyesi/Nevşehir Merkez/Nevşehir Merkez/Nevşehir, Turkey) two years ago on a trip. The rooms were carved into the limestone cliffs with stone rooms as additions. This stone living room where my X slept on the red couch, was connected via arched doorways into a bedroom that was carved into the cliff. The bathroom, also deep inside the cliff was a few steps up from the bedroom and had a large tub and plenty of pockets in the limestone walls to store towels and toiletries. Tiny windows carved in the walls overlooked the village below.

Another bathroom had deep holes in the floor covered in glass that fell away into the depths of the rock. The arched doorways between rooms had a definite disadvantage in that they were carved by someone who is less than 5 feet tall. I banged my head really hard one time as I was rushing to get out for a day of frantic sight seeing.

Flight to DC then Turkey.

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 A couple of years ago, my X and I went to Turkey to visit her niece Allison Brown
who works for the United States foreign service. At the time we visited
Allison, she said that her job might get very complicated if there was
politically charged dissent in the country. Her hotel had metal posts at
a guard booth that were intended to stop any terrorist threat of, let’s
say, a bomb filled truck. Luckily, she is now working in Washington
D.C.during the time of the present civil unrest.

Turkey has been in the news recently with a huge “March for Justice” that ended in Istanbul. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the rally in Istanbul following the 25 day long march to protest the government of president Recip Tayyip Erdogen. The government has been cracking down against any perceived threats after a failed coup last summer. The president was granted sweeping new powers after a controversial referendum in April. Erdogen claims to be cracking down on those who support militant organizations, but the government definition of what constituted backing terrorism is so broad that it has led to the arrest of thousands of civil servants, journalists, campaigners and other workers. Protesters demanded “Rights, Laws, Justice.” Also since this trip, Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Turkish Consulate. What seemed like a gorgeous country to visit turned out to be dangerous.

The trip began with a flight to Washington D.C. where we would transfer to the international flight to Istanbul. I can never sleep on a plane, so the sketch pad invariably comes out.

It is a chance for me to check for the closest emergency exits and observe my fellow passengers.

Of course the flight from Orlando to D.C. wasn’t too long, but the flight to Istanbul was eternal. I watched plenty of movies and the progress map to pass the time after the sketch was done. Sketching on a plane is a thing that can only amuse me once a day. I don’t tend to like sitting in an audience staring at the back of heads and that is the only view available on an airplane. I can also easily pass the time watching the clouds which make amazing patterns, but this was an overnight flight which meant it was pitch black outside and everyone had their blinds down.

Trajan’s Temple in Pergamon Turkey.

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Roman Temples are found all along the coast of Turkey. The Temple of Trajan, also called Trajaneum, is one of the most
spectacular structures in Pergamon‘s Upper Acropolis area. It is also
the only Roman monument in this location. The construction of the temple was initiated under the Roman emperor
Trajan (hence it’s name) and completed by his successor Hadrian. The
purpose of the temple was to provide a venue for the religious cult of
both rulers as well as Zeus. Since Hellenistic times, the worship of
rulers as gods had become customary in Asia Minor. As the monument of
Roman domination, the Trajaneum’s purpose was to strengthen the bonds of
Pergamon with Rome and with the Imperial family. The Trajaneum’s
position, dominating the summit, was like a propaganda statement
concerning who was the ruler of the city and the province. The Temple of
Trajan was the fourth imperial cult temple to be built in the province
of Asia.

The Temple of Trajan was uncovered and examined in the years 1879-1880
and 1885 by an architect H. Stiller, but for decades the ruins were left
as they had been found. In the 1960’s the Turkish Administration
initialized the process of its restoration. The challenge was taken up
by German Archaeological Institute (DAI) that provided the initiative to
re-examine the building. Preparations started in 1965 and in 1976 the
restoration program was approved by the Turkish Directorate of
Antiquity. The reconstruction started with the halls which would be
easier to re-construct because of the weight and dimensions of working pieces.
Due to the preservation of complete pieces, columns in particular, the
northern hall offered the most promising preconditions. The
reconstruction lasted until 1994 with the cooperation of architects,
archaeologists and stonemasons from various European countries working
with numerous Turkish specialists. The Trajaneum was splendidly
reconstructed through anastylosis (the reassembly of existing, but
loose parts) by German archaeologists.

The Temple of Apollo in Didim Turkey.

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The Temple of Apollo has to be the most impressive old world architecture that I have ever seen. The columns have such a large circumference that they seem like they have to have been made by giants. A large stone hallway still leads to the center of the temple. There is no way to truly convey the vast scale of the site, When you get dos to the still standing columns, they are over whelming. There was a large puddle at the base of the steps to the temple. Thousands of tiny tad poles swam in the puddle frantically. I imagined the sun must be evaporating the water making it an imperative that they sprout legs an adapt to life on dry land. A turtle lumbered along across the path I wag on, as I sketched.

The ruins of Didyma are located at a short distance to the northwest of modern Didim in Aydin Province, Turkey, whose name is derived from Didyma’s. Greek and Roman authors refer the name Didyma to temples of the twins, Apollo and Artemis, whose own cult center at Didyma was only recently established. 
Excavations by German archaeologists have uncovered a major sanctuary
dedicated to Artemis, with the key ritual focus being water.

The 6th century Didymaion, dedicated to Apollo, enclosed a
smaller temple that was its predecessor, which archaeologists have
identified. Its treasury was enriched by gifts from Croesus. To approach the temple, visitors would follow the Sacred Way to Didyma, about
10 miles long. Along the way, were ritual way stations, and statues of
members of the Branchidae family, male and female, as well as animal
figures. Some of these statues, dating to the 6th century BC, are now in
the British Museum, taken by the British archaeologist Charles Newton in the 19th century

Kayaköy Turkey.

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Kayaköy is a deserted village in south west Turkey. Terry’s niece, Alison Brown joined us for this leg of the trip. She worked for the US embassy in Turkey, and this village was on her bucket list of places she wanted to see. In ancient times it was the city of Lycia, Later, Anatolian Greeks lived here until approximately 1922. The ghost town,
now preserved as a museum village, consists of hundreds of rundown but
still mostly standing Greek-style houses and churches which cover a
small mountainside and serve as a stopping place for tourists.

At the end of the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) Greek inhabitants, mostly elderly women and children, were forced to leave through a march of fifteen days. During that death march,
the roads were strewn with bodies of dead children and the elderly who
succumbed to hunger and fatigue. The exiles of the next year were no
less harsh. In September 1922, the few remaining Greeks abandoned their homes and embarked on ships to Greece. Many of the abandoned buildings were damaged in the 1957 Fethiye earthquake.

Many of the exposed interior walls Still have warn coats of paint that serves as a reminder that this village was occupied not long ago. I imagined residents going about their lives in the narrow Stone alley ways. As Terry and Allison hiked ahead, I stopped to sketch on a bluff overlooking the ruins. I thought that this was a view that a painter like Cezanne would have appreciated. In September of 2014, the Turkish government announced plans to develop
the village. It plans to offer a 49-year lease that will “partially open ‘s the archaeological site to construction” and anticipated
“construction of a hotel, as well as tourist facilities that will
encompass one-third of the village.

Anatolian Houses in Goreme Turkey.

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This is a view from the grass covered roof outside our room in Goreme Turkey. We traveled to Derinkuyu, an underground cave city. Snow began to fall as the taxi driver drove us to the caves. Rooms, passage ways and an air shaft were all carved into the rock deep under ground. You couldn’t have claustrophobia and live in this underground city. The tube shaped passages were just large enough so you could walk through while hunched over. Extending to a depth of approximately 200 feet, it is large
enough to have sheltered as many as 20,000 people together with their
livestock and food stores. It is the largest excavated underground city
in Turkey and is one of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia.

 The underground city at Derinkuyu could be closed from the inside with
large stone doors. Each floor could be closed off separately. The city at Derinkuyu was fully formed in the Byzantine era, when it was heavily used as protection from Muslim Arabs during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780-1180). It was at this time that most of the chapels and Greek inscriptions
were added. The city was connected with other underground cities through
miles of tunnels. Some artifacts discovered in these underground
settlements belong to the Middle Byzantine Period, between the 5th and
the 10th centuries A.D. When the Christian inhabitants of the region were expelled in 1923 in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey the tunnels were abandoned. The tunnels were rediscovered in 1963, after a resident of the area
found a mysterious room behind a wall in his home. Further digging
revealed access to the tunnel network. It was opened to visitors in 1969 and about half of the underground city is currently accessible to tourists.