A Walking Tour Of Ephesus

Last week, while we were on Chios, we took a side trip over to Turkey to visit Ephesus. This turned out to be another trip filled with God's blessing and provision. Kelly wrote a beautiful post about it a few days ago. You can see it here.

Our tour guide was a truly fantastic new friend named Bülent Yurttas, a Professional tour guide (with a capital "P", in or opinion). He has a web site. You can see it here, but the web site doesn't do justice to what a good man he is and how comfortable we were with him. Highly recommended!

Before we get to the pictures, a little background on Ephesus. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

Ephesus (Ancient Greek Ἔφεσος, Turkish Efes) was an ancient Greek city, and later a major Roman city, on the west coast of Asia Minor, near present-day Selçuk, Izmir Province, Turkey. It was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League during the Classical Greek era. In the Roman period, it was for many years the second largest city of the Roman Empire; ranking behind Rome, the empire's capital.^[1][2] Ephesus had a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC, which also made it the second largest city in the world.^[2]

The city was famed for the Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The temple was destroyed in 401 AD by a mob led by St. John Chrysostom.^[3] Emperor Constantine I rebuilt much of the city and erected new public baths. The town was again partially destroyed by an earthquake in 614 AD. The city's importance as a commercial center declined as the harbor was slowly silted up by the Cayster River (Küçük Menderes).

Ephesus was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation.^[4] In Revelation Chapter two they were commended by Jesus for their labor to the point of exhaustion, their perseverence and their unwillingness to listen to the false teachers of their day. Jesus does hold one thing against them..."you have left your first love." (NASB) Their Christianity had become a faithful ritual but not a relationship of love to the Lord. The Gospel of John may have been written here.^[5] It is also the site of a large gladiators' graveyard.

Today's archaeological site lies 3 kilometers southwest of the town of Selçuk, in the Selçuk district of İzmir Province, Turkey. The ruins of Ephesus are a favorite international and local tourist attraction, partly owing to their easy access from Adnan Menderes Airport and via the port of Kuşadası.

Here's what I have to say:

It was phenomenal! Much larger than I would have thought and amazingly well preserved. You could almost see Paul walking down the streets and going to the meeting places. Once a major port, it is now about 5 kilomoters inland due to silt build up along its river banks where it empties into the sea.

Here's our slide show. Music is, in order; "Theme From Exodus", "Theme From Ben Hur" and "Wheat" from The Gladiator

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