May 13, 2010

As I stood outside the gates of Ephesus waiting for my colleagues to debark from the bus, my new friend Woody beckoned me.
“That vendor has coins,” he said, gesturing to a nearby booth.
I rushed to the spot, bent down to examine what were fakes – good fakes, but fakes nonetheless. Of course, as a dilettante archaeologist, I wouldn’t dream of buying the real thing. One must embrace one’s professional ethics, after all. But I’m more than happy to look at the real thing, followed by a mini-lecture on why digging up coins destroys priceless archaeological evidence. The vendor spoted me and announced, “Of course, those coins are reproductions, Madame,” then leaning in to whisper conspiratorially, said “but I have real ones if you are interested.”
He led me to the back of the booth, pulled out boxes from behind shelves and lifted a small silver box from a battered wooden one.
“I found these myself,” he confided, and dropped a 6th C. BC coin from Ephesus into my open palm. I tried to look unimpressed. Apparently I succeeded because he quickly added, “I have others, Madame. Tell me what you like.”
“I’m only interested in Roman Era coinage,” I said. Out came the Augustus, Domitian and Caracalla coins, complete with Artemis and stags. As I examined these, he slipped a ring on my finger. I placed the coins back in his hand and looked closer. It was a carved gemstone with an image of a 2nd century man. The silver setting needed to be cleaned, but the gemstone was beautiful. May I confess? The contraband ring felt good on my finger.
“I have to go,” I said firmly, removing the ring from my finger and dropping it in his hand.
“I can give you a good price, Madame,” he said, gesturing for me to come back as I marched resolutely towards the gates where my companions were waiting for me. I felt simultaneously righteous and sordid.
Our guide led us to a tall fig tree and began by retelling the foundation myths of Ephesus. My attention wandered as I saw the scores of bees buzzing from one clump of purple flowers to another. “Ahh… that explains the bee imagery on coinage,” I thought. I tried to keep my enthusiasm under control and not interrupt the guide, even when he said that Homer’s hometown was Smyrna and that he lived in the 7th C. BC. When we passed the Fountain of Trajan, which featured an enormous globe at the feet (that was all that was left of him) of Trajan, I just couldn’t be quiet any longer.
My companions turned to look at me indulgently as I clapped my hands and jumped up and down, explaining the ideology behind the iconography. The neokorate temple of Domitian got similarly enthusiastic explanations as did the Library of Celsus and the Odeon. I even educated a chemist turned international affairs professor about the finer details of Greek epigraphy.
“That was fascinating,” she told me, and I turned my head sharply to determine whether she was mocking me or she really thought it was as cool as I did. She apparently has a little geekiness to her as well. She was clearly intrigued and began to point out (from the many, many inscriptions that lined the Sacred Path from the Hercules Gate to the Library of Celsus) things she’d learned and tried to date the inscription from letter forms.
My colleague Woody joked that he knew we’d just reached an important point when he heard my sharp intake of breath combined with the little clap. He was right. This time it was the theater, three times expanded and remodeled under the Romans to suit their national taste in drama. It was a great opportunity to consider the different approaches to the theater that Greeks and Romans took.
There was more, of course, but I won’t bore you with the details. The House of the Virgin Mary, the Cave of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, the Archaeological Museum (OMG – an image of Glycon there!??!!!), dinner with a charming couple in the working class neighborhood of Izmir before a dash to Ankara.