Exploring Knidos, Turkey

What fun to pretend we are archeologists and try to see ancient buildings in big piles of block and wonderfully carved marble. That’s what the old port city of Knidos in Turkey is today.

Looking through the theater across the stoa or market

Here below is the fallen church facing east and curved on that end with a baptismal well.

On the left is me holding a carved shard of pottery, of course!

From 400 BC to 1000 or so AD it was a prosperous port and educational center in the Carian Empire exporting all kinds of products around the Med and famous for it’s builders and educators. One was the builder of the lighthouse in Alexandria; Sostratus, quite famous. Another, Praxiteles sculpted the statue “Aphrodite of Cnidus” there and it was said to be so enticing that it had to be covered to keep men in line! It was the first life-sized female nude statue.

This city was even known as a medical center. As yet very little has been done to excavate the damage of time, war and earthquakes. This made walking all around the site even more intriguing. We could try to imagine how the buildings were used by ancient civilizations. It was quite a large city covering hills on both sides of the isthmus where it was filled between two islands to form two harbors: one for defense and one for trade. Knidos was rediscovered from rubble in 1812 but not even sorted for over 100 years. Some university in Russia is working on it now.

The main street of marble steps going up the hill

Just part of a column laying right at the waters edge

Today there are just cruise boats and a restaurant and you can see CYAN there among them. We took long walks in the morning and got lots of exercise before taking off for the next stop.

CYAN is just to the right of the catamaran in the center.

Info on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knidos

Here is the “loud ass” that woke us up!!!