Aphrodisias

         The ancient city Aphrodisias was a place of myth for so long until the 1950s, Ara Guler, a turkish photographer, took shelter from a severe storm in a village called Geyre in Turkey. The next morning he woke up and walked outside to find two ordinary villagers smoking cigarettes on an extraordinary bench made of marble and had carvings of dolphins, a symbol of fortune tellers during the classical era. With the rain not clouding his vision, Guler found pieces of roman ruins scattered throughout the village, halfway buried into the ground, recycled parts into the new houses, or used as grape mashers. 

         Guler snapped iconic photos that are exhibited at Aphrodisias today and submitted them to his archaeologist friend, Kenan Erim. Erim, students from NYU, and other turkish archaeologists uncovered the entire city; it's stadium, theater, agora, and pool. It's truly amazing how much time and effort the archaeologists commit to these sites. Cenk, our tour guide, explained how the archaeologists must slowly dig and swift through all the dirt looking for smaller ruin pieces. This takes a lot of patience and certain weather conditions, which limits the amount of time they can accomplish this task. The dirt must be completely dry, which means they can only work in the summer, so uncovering sites can take decades, or even longer to uncover. Not only do the seasons limit the archaeologists, but also their area of speciality. Each archaeologist may specialize in a certain era of that particular location, and when they discover a different era outside of their specialty then they must call upon their colleagues that do. 

         Simply finding the location and then digging carefully through meters of earth itself is very difficult, but then the archaeologists must resurrect the ruins. It's like having a life-size puzzle with enormous stone or marble pieces and maybe half of them missing. Dr. Moore, one of our accompanying professors, had visiting the site just five years prior and said that amount of progress that he had witnessed was amazing. From being just a small pieces here and there in a small village, to being piles of stones scattered about, then to having the grand entry way of the city restored to life is quite astonishing. 

         Many considered Aphrodisias to have the best sculpting school in the world and this was demonstrated throughout the city. The friezes that cover the walls of the ancient buildings had sculptures of various faces, which exhibited all the work of the students of the city. Every face was unique as was each student making it. 

         As an athlete, what impacted me that most was the stadium. My heart found joy in knowing that even in the earlier centuries sports brought people together from near and far to witness truly amazing god-given talent. Even Odysseus and the Phaeacians enjoyed some olympic games amongst themselves and Odysseus bests all of them. Sports not only give you a sense of pride, but it brings people together: whether your an athlete, a fan, or a coach. The stadium at Aphrodisias was immense and comparable to some large high school stadiums in the U.S today. Although the city itself was not very large, the stadium was built to support the surrounding cities coming to watch the events taking place. It was 198m long or one stadia, which was the standard measuring unit back then. Not only was the stadium steeped with athletic history, but of gladiator and chariot racing.