F

irst of all, I would like you to have a map in front of you that covers the area from Italy of today all the way to Egypt so that you can understand better what I mean by the following explanation. On this map, you will see that Turkey forms a sort of rectangular land like a bridge in between of two great continents (Asia and Europe) and also the land lies about half way in between of Italy and Egypt. In other words, the land has been having and has a great geopolitical importance. With this situation, the land was occupied and invaded by many different nations for thousands and thousands of years.

W

hen I guide the visitors at this site, I, generally, explain the site starting from 3rd Millenium BC because that was, more or less, the time when the writing was invented and there was a great nation who were called the 'Hittites' who left deepest traces of their civilization on this land. But, like every empire or kingdom, as they rose they fell down, too. During their decline, the Hittite Kingdom was divided into different principalities like Carians, Lelegians, Lycians, Cilicians, Phrygians, etc. There were somewhere around 15 newly born states after the Hittites were gone. At the same time (12th Century BC), there were three different tribes adventing from mainland of Greece of today who were called Dorians, Achaeans and Aeolians who were in search of fertile soils to feed on since their land went dry and could not produce any agricultural provisions. Meanwhile, the Hittites were assaulted by the Egyptians from the south-east.

A

ccording to one ancient tradition, the rulers, kings, high ranking military commanders could not do anything without consulting the important matters to the oracles of their chief deities they were worshipping. So, there is a mithological story which relates to the establishment of the cities of Ephesus:

C

ommander Androclos, who was leading one of the branches of the Achaeans, consulted migration matter to the oracle of Goddess Athena who was worshipped as Wisdom Goddess and Protectress of the cities. The oracle in the temple answered Androclos' question as 'At the place where you will see a fish, a fire and a wild boar will be the place where you will settle your people'. Naturally, as you noticed, it did not make any sense to him. But, one day, when they were strolling on the coast of the Aegean Sea, around the present location of Ephesus of today, Androclos noticed some of his people were roasting an alive fish on a grill. The fish jumped off the grill with a live coal attached to it falling into the dry thicket causing a fire. At that moment, a wild boar started to run away from this fire. Seeing this, Androclos remembered the words of the oracle which made him a sense. The men killed the animal where Androclos decided to erect a temple in dedication to Goddess Athena to thank to her and the people, gradually, started to live around this temple forming a city which was named as "EPHESUS". You can see the picture depicting this event on the next page.

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