Five Feet, Nine Inches Above Ground

Saturday January 31, 2026

The focus of Friday January 30 was the celebrated archeological site of the city dedicated to the goddess Artemis: Ephesus. It is hard to imagine today the importance of this port city in the ancient world. Today, it is completely landlocked the once vibrant port filled in by silt and the shifting currents of the sea. Excavations and reconstruction work is extensive and ongoing. The addition of a multidimensional audiovisual experience gives a boost to the imagination when walking the through the site. We spent the better part of a windy, sunny day exploring the ruins.

The city was famous for its immense temple dedicated to Artemis and the three dimensional show illustrates her importance from the start. This was not exactly the Greek version of the goddess but a deity influenced by local ancient belief systems: she controls life and death of everything, the earth and all of its inhabitants. Ephesus was also renowned for its theatre that could hold 24, 000 audience members. The Celsus library was a major centre of learning with its immense collection of manuscripts. The city reached its peak during the Roman period. The early Christian church of Ephesus was the recipient of St Paul’s letters to the Ephesians and he may have lived there for three years during his trip through Asia Minor.

The site is huge and takes some time to walk all of it – probably several kilometres. We covered the major parts lingering in the terraced houses that are now undercover.

The Latrines were part of a public bath house. No partitions! It was a community meeting place where information regarding prices of goods were exchanged, local news and gossip. Water flowed under the latrines carrying the waste out to sea.

The exit from this spectacular part of the Ephesus archeological presentation is halfway up the slope of a steep hill since that is how the terraced houses were built. It gave a great view of the valley and bunch more descending steps in the day.

There was more of the site to explore!

It was early afternoon and we were ready for a break so we headed for the exit. More about our stay in Kuşadası in another post. See you then!