The next stop in our counter-clockwise journey through Easter Turkey is Pergamum. It was built at the summit of a very high mountain. The Turkish government just last year constructed a gondola for tourists to visit the ruins. Heretofore, up to 60 huge tour busses would be either in the parking lot or on the one way road all day long; a logistical nightmare.
The omnipresent amphitheater. This one is unique in that it is the steepest yet discovered in Asia Minor. Although not large (!), archeologists think they may have discovered another, triple this size, on another hillside surrounding Pergamum.
It is most famous for what is missing. First, like Ephesus it was a port city. Now it is miles away from the Agean Sea. A typical silting in of the adjacent river of the 2 millennia of its existence. Like most cities in Asia Minor, Pergamum has been populated for almost 2500 years. In this case it was the Attalids that founded the city, rather then the Greeks. Although they gave numerous and continuous gifts to Greek city states to keep them at bay. When the last king of Pergamum was without an heir, rather then to have his city go through a civil war, he bequeathed the city to Rome!
We have seen this all over Turkey. Two walls abutting each other. Quite different. Age difference? One thousand years! Which one? See end of blog.
After Rome, Byzantines; then the Ottomans; now, modern Turkey. Oh, what else is missing? The Great Altar of Pergamum. It was stolen by the Germans in the 1800’s, restored and rebuilt and now in a showcase in the Berlin Museum.
We saw this altar in Berlin, it is breathtaking! Note to you New Testament scholars: St. John in Revelation called this altar “Satan’s Throne”. Curious, this was constructed around 150 BC, 200 years before John and it was built to commemorate battles and victories, not gods. Fiery guy.
Interesting side note. The city was advancing at such a rapid rate that it’s library began to eclipse Alexandria’s in Egypt. Since Egypt was the only source for papyrus used in the western world’s scroll libraries, they simply stopped exporting papyrus to Pergamum! The Pergamese did them one better: they invented parchment. Made from sheep skin, it eventually replaced papyrus as “document of choice”.
Easy answer. The one on the LEFT. Reason: the one on the right would not stand up to the numerous earthquakes over the millennia, the one on the left can and did!
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