Turkey part 3: Troy & Pergamon – The Hollow Horse and Where Satan Lives

TROY & PERGAMON

Next morning I was picked up again by a different bus and different travellers but fortunately there was one familiar face – our guide Burak. Just to prove that yesterday was not just a flash in the pan he gave us a thorough insight into the many layers of ruins in Troy.

There are 10 layers in Troy I but we focused on the seven layers of Troy II 2,500-2,200 BC. A lot of digging is still going on and new things are found all of the time. Good thing they take more time and care these days compared to the past. One so called archaeologist was so keen to get through to the older stuff that he just ploughed through and destroyed parts of the other layers.

No need to say that the Trojan Horse is pure mythology but the city of Troy was subject to numerous invasions and sieges over time. Must have been a horrible time to live. I know we still live in war time but it seems like not as often as back then.

From Troy I was taken (different bus and guide) to Pergamon, an ancient Greek city perched high up on a hill above the city of Bergama more famous today as one of the 7 churches mentioned in Revelations and being referred to as “where satan lives” due to the pagan temples that are there. As far as ruined cities go this was pretty impressive. It’s as if I am going from basic to massive ruined cities (Morocco, Troy, Pergamon, Ephesus).

By this stage I was basically on my own with the guide so I got a great personal tour of this site. The wind was howling and the only way up is by cable car and the four of us in the car were nearly sick as it swayed from side to side. Four grown men shitting themselves.

The highlights were many but the incredibly steep 10,000 seat capacity theatre was pretty cool. Also, from an engineering and construction perspective, the foundations they built to level off the ground in order to build the amazing structure above it. But truly amazing was the fact that they dragged a lot of the materials up the enormous hill. And then there was the amazingly advanced engineering that transported water from miles away to this hilltop city.