Ephesus Pictures

The few pictures that I've posted here cannot come close to depicting how amazing Ephesus is. It was especially nice to visit it when we did because there weren't swarms of people there. Any visit to Turkey, I'd say, should include a trip to this city (another one of the churches mentioned in Revelation 2 as well as the city where Paul lived)...

Looking at the agora (marketplace) through the Gate of Augustus, near the library.

There are statues of the 4 virtues at the front of the library. I believe this one is wisdom, but right now I just can't remember if that's correct or not...guess I should have chosen a different virtue to sit in front of...

Oh, you know...Johan's just eating a Turkish delight in the Roman bath house (toilets in the background). It was quite a nice view of the city from here. It would have been a nice place to hang out...

This is the view of the theater from the stage. This theater is huge--seats approximately 44,000 people. It was neat because the stage had been renovated so you could see pretty clearly how they spiced things up with trap doors and such.

Of course, besides just having fun acting, speeches, and meetings, there were also times when the entertainment included gladiators. These are the halls underneath the stage where the gladiators waited before headed out to fight. I can't imagine the emotions they felt while waiting here.

In its prime, there were about 450,000 people who lived in Ephesus. Here you can see the library in the background.

The Library of Celsus was one of the largest libraries in the ancient world, holding 12,000 scrolls.

Classes are in full-swing now. It's a lot of Arabic all the time.

Have a good Tuesday!