Touring Turkey. Part III

August 13...24, 2015

In Turkey there are enormous flagpoles with giant flags on them everywhere you go. It’s beautiful.

Nemrut Dağ

This part of Turkey is practically deserted because the war in neighbouring Syria scared off all the tourists, so they don’t come here anymore.

The tomb on Mount Nemrut was opened fairly recently — at the end of the nineteenth century, although they only started excavation work in the middle of the twentieth. There are mountains everywhere and not much to do, which is probably why they didn’t discover any of this earlier.

There wasn’t even a ticket seller on the approach to the mountain, I just drove right in. At the base of the mount there was a lone guard who came out, asked us not climb to the very top, then went back to drinking his tea.

I was the only visitor. That’s like being the only visitor in the Parthenon. And yet sometimes in life these things do happen, and I compulsively collect such occasions (the sheer bliss of being completely alone in a famous place).

In contrast to Easter Island, which is overrated, the statues here are truly impressive.

Further along the road we stumbled upon a rather large castle in the ancient village of Kahta, which the military seems to be repurposing for its own needs.

Diyarbakir

Rest.

New bridge.

This photograph encapsulates the beauty of the city of Diyarbakır pretty well.

Although the IV century basalt city walls are still standing.

These walls, together with the gardens they’ve been tending here for several thousand years, were recently been granted UNESCO world heritage site status.

As a result all of the buildings which for many centuries cut costs, building one fewer wall by piggybacking on the city walls, were knocked down. And this in itself is a staggering sight. After all, back in the day paupers’ shacks were torn off all sorts of famous walls (including those of the Moscow kremlin) in similar fashion, the objective being to develop attractive tourist sites.

Gaziantep

The castle, still standing atop the hill here, is not bad at all.

In front of it there’s a fairly ugly Turkish watchman monument. It seems to suggest that Turkish watchmen would first stick out the palms of their hands to stop the enemy in his tracks, and only then fire their rifles. Intriguingly, in Greece this gesture is roughly equivalent to giving the single finger salute, with a clear expression of contempt thrown in.

Inside the castle there are wonderful carpets lining the corridors. I imagine that’s how it used be in all castles.

At the base of the hill excavations are underway under glass panels. It would appear that the importance of the dig has been exaggerated.

The old town nearby is very modest.

Address signs.

Brutalist rubbish bin.

Gaziantep dumpster.

Nice caravan.

Adana

Nothing special.

Barring this one old sign that’s cool.

Çatalhöyük

An enormous neolithic settlement where digging still takes place every year. Nice to think that even 7000 years ago our ancestors weren’t all that stupid.

There’s still a lot of digging to be done, a few more hundred year’s worth given current technology.

The locals, albeit in no way related to those who lived here in the Neothlic, have not made much progress civilisationally speaking — they still sit on the ground outside the entrance to their lodgings.