Located a couple of three-hour drive north of Ephesus, the ruins at Pergamum (also referred to as Bergama) are a must-see for travelers to Turkey. For the ruins at Pergamum are as stunning as any within the world.
That’s due both to their beauty and to their location, perched high atop a 1300-foot promontory that overlooks the fashionable town of Bergama and surrounding hills. occasionally it felt just a small amount like Machu Picchu up there—windswept, remote, and evocative of mystery.
Bergama History
Pergamum was once one amongst the best cities within the Greco-Roman world. It grew rich within the third century BC and later became the capital of the Roman province of Asia. It featured a ten,000-seat amphitheater delve the steep side of Capitol Hill and was a renowned center of learning because of its library, one amongst the biggest within the ancient world (our word parchment derives from Pergamum, in fact).
The city was guarded by four patron deities: Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, and Asclepius, and in 29 BC it became the location of the primary imperial cult temple in Asia, the temple of Augustus.
Such a dramatic site clearly needed a extremely big altar to honor the king of the gods, then the altar to Zeus was built. It absolutely was the biggest altar of the traditional world, an immense structure nearly 120 feet wide and 40 feet high, with a decorated frieze depicting the struggle between the gods and giants. Fires from the sacrifices there can be seen from isolated, a logo of imperial might also as religious devotion.
Alas, within the nineteenth century the Germans took Zeus’ altar to a museum in Berlin, a cultural theft on the identical order because the British swiping the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon. (You can head to Berlin to determine the altar at the Pergamum Museum, and maybe we must always be grateful that its splendor has been preserved somewhere.
In Bergama Today
Today on top of Pergamum’s hill there are only some scattered stones left from the altar, but enough remains of its other marble monuments to present a way of the grandeur that after was here.
Pergamum played a task in early Christian history still. It absolutely was the third of the seven churches mentioned in Revelation 1-3, and a few scholars believe that the altar to Zeus served because the inspiration for Satan’s throne mentioned in Revelation 2:13. It is smart, does it not?
If you're a persecuted minority, hounded and beleaguered, and you wish to settle on an emblem of all that's oppressing you, that altar to Zeus may be a pretty good selection, standing because it did within the center of the powerful acropolis of Pergamum. Naming it after Satan is an appropriate touch, too, a final thumbing of your nose at imperial Rome.
By now, of course, Zeus has long fled Pergamum, together with Athena and also the remainder of the gods. (You even have to appear long and hard to seek out many Christians in Turkey, of course). Is there anyplace quite so forlorn and haunted as a sanctum which the gods have abandoned?
