Tripping over history, literally - Katy

I know that I've spoken about this before, but we are continually bewildered by all of the sights and scenes of ancient, and ancient, ancient, and ancient, ancient, ancient history here, specially along the mediteranian coast. During one of our adventures in Mersin, we drove an hour outside of the city to explore a couple of different cities from the Roman & Hellenistic eras; literally everywhere we looked, there were ruins. All of our Turkish friends & guides found our reactions and exclamations very amusing. For them this all so common place; what is interesting to them is our reaction.

There are some many artifacts and historical sites that it is virtually impossible for the Turkish government to elminiate all illegal excavations. From an article that I read (my numbers may be a little fuzzy here, but pretty close): between 2002 to 2007 there were 800 illegal excavations, they've been able to cut that down and there were only 200 between 2007-2008. When we toured the Antalya Museum we faced a bit of shame; a statute and ancient Christian artifact were only partially recovered, the identification sign said that the remaining portion of the artifacts had been stolen and were now on display in museums in the United States (including half of a marble statue of Hercules that is at the Met in New York). Ouch! According to the signs, the Turkish authorities are in negotiations for the return of these items.

There are just layer upon layer upon layer of civilizations that have existed in this small part of the world, from the beginning of man to the earliest Christians (Peter and Paul) to the Ottoman Empire (which existed for 600 years). Any time artifacts are discovered in the ground, the government is supposed to be notified. In Tarsus, they have severly limited any new construction because everywhere they dig they find new ruins and artifacts. Sarah's host family in Mersin owns a farm in Eastern Turkey. When they were digging in their fruit orchard they found arrowheads and other items. Because they didn't want to be subjected to government seizure of their property they just reburied the artifacts.

It is easy to understand why there is so litte protection and security of the ruins and ancient cities; there are just so many that they couldn't possible manage all of them.

Any history buffs or lovers of ancient civilizations should definitely consider a trip to Turkey. It is obvious that the Rotarians in Antalya appreciate the importance of these ancient cities, as many of their clubs are named after them.

We head to Perge on Friday, which should be another stunning site. It seemed as if about half of the items on display in the Antalya Museum came from Perge. I promise to post pictures.