Turkey/Greece Tour, May, 2014

The entrance of this cave-church was marked with etchings. Again, the earliest crosses symbolizing Christianity were symmetrical.

Christians, persecuted by the Romans, fled and hid in the caves of the Goreme region. They also established some of the first churches, also in caves. They marked the entrance of the church-caves in various ways. Here the entrance was marked with paint. Note the early crosses, not the same as modern (post 3rd century) crosses.

The entrance of this cave-church is marked with a modern cross.

A traditional Turkish stew is placed in the potter jar, sealed and essentially lit on fire. The heat makes the jar brittle. When the food is done, the top of the jar is broken cleanly open and the contents dished out onto plates.

Free-hand painting a white clay vase.

One of the owners of the pottery shop drawing the outline of the design he will later paint, by hand. No stencil.

The landscape in Cappadocia was surreal, but nowhere more so than the fairy chimneys in Devrent Valley.

Carved marble was everywhere, the craftsmanship unbelievable.

Five generations of pottery makers.

From this vantage point, it was no wonder the Attalid dynasty took advantage of the location to build Pergamon.

These are just outside the inner wall. The Alter of Zeus, marked by the trees, is in the background.

Various blocks. I wondered why there wasn't a more concentrated effort to use them to reconstruct the original buildings? The Alter of Zeus (Satan's Seat in the Bible) is marked by the trees in the background, where, "In 1871, the Zeus Altar was rediscovered by the German engineer Carl Humann, who took it back to his home country. It is now exhibited at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The Turkish government is in the process of trying to get the artifact back from Germany."