A Visit to St. Nick

Who knew that we'd be visiting St. Nick in Turkey?

If we'd paid much attention to the origins of the St. Nicholas legends, we would have known. The original St. Nicholas was a Bishop of Myra in the 4th century A.D. At that time, Myra was part of Lycia. Now it's in Turkey and the ancient city of Myra is now known as Demre.

St. Nicholas was admired for his generosity and kindness. One legend has him saving three daughters of a poor fisherman from prostitution by secretly giving a bag of gold to each daughter for her dowry. One account has St. Nicholas on the roof of the cottage, throwing a bag of gold down the chimney and into the stockings of one of the daughters, who had put them near the fire to dry.

He is the patron saint of children, sailors, fishermen, merchants, broadcasters. the falsely accused, prostitutes, repentant thieves, pharmacists, archers and pawnbrokers.  

Not a reindeer was in sight as we started our hike up Gemiler Island, also known as the Island of St. Nicholas. The island, off Turkey's Mediterranean coast, is covered by medieval ruins, including our destination, the Church of St. Nicholas, one of several churches on the island. Although the burial site of St. Nicholas is disputed, he was probably buried in this church immediately after his death, moved to the Church of St. Nicholas in Myra and then to Bari in Italy.

Along the way, we admired the organization of the buildings on the island. Many of them were connected by covered walkways and the arches still stand. Those monks knew how to stay out of the Mediterranean sun!

The dome of the Church of St. Nicholas.
At the very top, you can see the outline of a cross.

The remains of a covered walkway 
between buildings on Gemiler Island.

Definitely not the North Pole!

Barbara, Elise and I visit at the top of St. Nicholas Island.

The next day we visited St. Nicholas Church in Demre, formerly called Myra. The church was destroyed in 809, but rebuilt by Tsar Nicholas of Russia in 1862. Although the saint's bones are probably in Italy (some archaeologists are not convinced), his crypt is in this church. Like many of the other places we visited, this one is being restored. 

The Eternal Dog

Wandering around the sarcophagus room of the Antayla Archaeological Museum, I was awed by the talent of the carvers and sculptors who decorated the funeral receptacles for the Greek and Roman families. I admired warriors in action, hunters and their dogs chasing a deer or a bear. The warriors were brave and determined or heroic as they either prepared to kill an opponent or meet their death; the hunters and dogs focused on their prey, the prey desperately running away. The sculptors ability to infuse limestone with life and emotions is astounding.

Nowhere in the room is this talent more apparent than on the Sarcophagus of the Mourning Women. Eighteen women, apparently relatives or wives rather than professional mourners, are carved into the sarcophagus, all in deep mourning for the deceased. Somehow the sculptors brought the limestone to life, portraying through facial expression or body posture or the drape of her clothes, the devastation of losing a loved one. I spent a long time admiring and empathizing with the mourners.

Across the room is a small, undecorated sarcophagus. A child, I thought. Then I read the sign above it. The sarcophagus belongs to a dog. Instead of elaborate carvings, the dog's bereaved mistress wrote a poem, inscribed on the sarcophagus:



(It was) Rhodope's happiness

those who play with it called lovely Stephanos as

(This grave) keeps inside the one that death takes suddenly

This is the grave of Dog Stephanos that went away and vanished

Rhodope cried for it and buried it like a human

I, (the) Dog Stephanos, Rhodope caused my grave to be made. 

                    Inscription on a 3rd Century A.D. Sarcophagus for a Dog

                    Translated from Ancient Greek

Rhodope's voice speaks across eighteen centuries to all people who love their dogs and grieve their loss. 

In our married lives, my husband and I have owned (or been owned by) five Beagles: Hund, Argos, Mekko, Sophie and Cooper. As Rhodope did, we played with each of them and thought each one of them handsome or lovely. Hund chased a frisbee; Argos was an excellent soccer player. Mekko loved chasing a ball, but Sophie didn't play a lot. She was a very dignified dog who was Mekko's companion and later taught Cooper who was really the Alpha Beagle in our house. And she enjoyed every minute of being Big Sister to his Little Brother, including being able to get him in trouble by escaping the fence and leading him to a fun romp in the lake.

Like Rhodope, we grieved when Hund, Argos, Mekko and Sophie died. In each case, we felt as if we had lost a family member. And we buried each one of them like a human, in a grave near the house and yard where they lived.

Rhodope speaks across the millennia to everyone who has loved and lost a dog. Each time we've lost a Beagle, another one has come along to fill the empty spot in our hearts. Now we have Cooper.

I hope Rhodope found a Cooper.

Sophie and Mekko

Cooper and Sophie

Myth Busters

At Troy, there HAS to be a Trojan Horse!

The Trojan Horse would have come through the gate behind me.

I was in Troy. After decades of teaching literature associated with Troy—The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Aeneid—I was at Ground Zero of the action. I could hardly believe it. The name "Troy" was the reason I pointed at  "Legendary Turkey and the Turquoise Coast" in the Smithsonian Journeys catalog and said to David, "I'd like to go there."

So here I was. With a little (ok, a lot) of imagination, I could see the Odysseus and the Greeks building the Trojan Horse; Achilles pouting in his tent; Aeneas preparing to lead the defeated Trojans to Italy where they would found Rome; Odysseus and the Greeks leaving for what they believed would be a short trip home to Ithaca.

As excited as I was to be in Troy, I had to admit that the ruins are underwhelming. And what I learned about them was a definite reality check. Although Troy is now miles inland, it had at one time been on the coast and controlled trade throughout the region by controlling access to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and between Asia and Europe. Such a powerful city fought many wars.

Of the nine levels identified by the archaeological digs at Troy, Level 2 was the most impressive. If the Trojan War happened, it would have been at Level 6. Furthermore, archaeological research shows closer ties to the Hittites than to Greeks. The Trojan Horse—non-existent. Troy's long life (3000 B.C. - 1350 A.D.) included many wars and identifying one of them as THE Trojan War is futile, although the city was destroyed around 1180 B.C., the traditional time period of the Trojan War. The destruction might have been because of a war or because of an earthquake. And by the time Homer (or a group of poets) synthesized the many legends that made up his epics, the Troy identified with the Trojan War was already a ruin.

Well, bummer.

My favorite part of Homer's Iliad is the description of the Shield of Achilles, made by Hephaestus, the god of fire and metalworking. Hephaestus made five circles on the shield Achilles would wear to his death. The outer circle was the River Ocean; the inner one the Earth, sea, sun, moon and stars. Hephaestus decorated the other three circles with scenes of peace and prosperity and a populace engaged in daily living: a council listening to debates; a wedding celebration, dancing, plowing fields; harvesting grapes for wine; fields of sheep and cattle.  Only one-half of one circle pictures a city at war; the other half of that circle pictures a city at peace.

Hephaestus had it right. Although heroes and wars are what live on in our histories, ordinary people who  live ordinary lives build civilizations for the ages.

At each of our stops on our archaeological tour of Turkey, we saw evidence of daily life. Every ancient city had an amphitheatre used not only for performances, but also as a place for citizens to meet and debate issues. In Perge, we walked along the main street of the market, our feet in the ruts worn by cart traffic thousands of years ago, as meat and produce suppliers delivered their goods to the shops. In the Turkish countryside, we watched people tending acres of crops and herds of cattle and sheep, just as Hephaestus portrayed on Achilles' shield. In Ephesus and Bergamon, we admired the work of ancient craftsmen in the magnificent buildings.

Troy—and the epics of Homer and Virgil—are universal. They reveal truth and Truth. Whether the Trojan War is true—factual—is less important than the Truth—the universals about human nature—the epics reveal. The heroes and god behave like humans. They quarrel; they love; they mess up and suffer.   They choose sides; some win, some lose.

Aeneas loses the war, but he leads the defeated Trojans to a new land where they found Rome, one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known. Odysseus and his men leave Troy to go home to Ithaca, but because of his hubris, he loses all of his men and must fight to reclaim his palace. He becomes a much-beloved ruler of Ithaca and husband of Penelope.

We don't know the names of the Trojans who built and rebuilt their city after it was destroyed nor do we know the names of the craftsmen who built (and rebuilt after earthquakes, fires and wars) the cities whose ruins we toured. But they shared with the heroes the determination not to be defeated, to overcome whatever came their way—and to celebrate the good things in life: working, dancing, harvesting, feasting, drinking wine.

The Truth that Hephaestus engraved on Achilles' shield is that ordinary people living ordinary lives are the unsung heroes in a society. And we are ordinary people.