Introduction

This is a journey through some of the most influential and powerful city states of ancient history - from Constantinople to Halicarnassus. This beautiful Aegean Coast of Turkey was where two great ancient civilisations met: the Hittites and the Greeks, and this is the context in which many scholars now see the Trojan War.

The period of Greek colonisation which followed resulted in wealthy and influential cities, which produced scholars and scientists, architects and artists whose work still influences our lives today. They have also left us some of the most beautiful and evocative ruins in the world, in very lovely settings. These cities of western Turkey continued to be leading centres of early Christianity during the time of the Byzantine Empire, becoming a focus for European powers, such as the Knights Hospitallers of St John, and the vigorous Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice.

We fly into Istanbul in the north and out of Bodrum further south, thereby making the most of our time, journeying in one direction down this beautiful coast. Our sites range in time from Early Bronze Age kingdoms - the time of the Hittite Empire and the Homeric period - to the traditional domestic architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Staying five nights in one lovely hotel on the sea in Kusadasi gives time for rest and relaxation within this exciting and busy itinerary.

Itinerary

Day One 
Arrive Istanbul, private coach to our hotel.

Day Two
Day exploring the sites of Istanbul, including the National Archaeological Museum with displays on Troy and Assos.  

Day Three
Long drive and ferry crossing to Cannakale. Continue to the site of ancient Troy, evoking Homer’s epic poem and the endeavours of Heinrich Schliemann and others. At least nine cities have been identified, one on top of the other, with many more building phases, and a visit provokes much discussion about what went where!

Day Four 
Early Doric foundation of Assos, high on a rocky ridge, one of the most beautifully situated ancient sites in the world, with views out over the island of Lesbos. Continue to Ayvalik. 
 

Day Five
Ancient Pergamon, where the remains are spread over a wide area. The Aesclepium was famous as a healing centre, and pilgrims came from far and wide to have their dreams analysed and take the cures. The acropolis affords wonderful views, and the remains are spread all the way down the steep hillside. The theatre has one of the most precipitous inclines of any, with the famous altar of Zeus nearby (the sculptures, though, are in Berlin). Continue to hotel in Kusadasi.

Day Six
Ephesus, one of the highlights of western Turkey. This was one of the richest cities in Asia Minor, as attested by the monuments raised by its citizens. The city continued to thrive through the Roman period, in spite of severe earthquake damage, and what we see is a city much rebuilt, with re-used stone-work. One of the highlights is the Roman terraced houses, with painted walls and mosaics protected by a landslide, now beautifully restored and displayed. Reverence for the amazing Artemis of Ephesus continued throughout the city’s history, and her temple was once one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Above this stand the fortifications and basilica of St John at Selçuk, the city which replaced  Ephesus in Medieval times. The excellent site museum is also situated at Selçuk
 

Day Seven
Drive inland to Sardis, with its massive gymnasium. En route climb to the Hittite rock relief at Karabel. Return via Birgi with Selçuk and Ottoman architecture.
 

Day Eight  
Magical site of Priene, on a peaceful wooded hillside. Alexander the Great stayed here, and the site of a house shrine dedicated to him has been tentatively identified, but the impressive public monuments leave no doubt as to their identification - stadium, bouleterion, temples and agora stand as very substantial ruins. Miletus, home of philosophers and scientists. Didyma, the huge temple, never completely finished, which housed an oracular shrine to Apollo, where his priests gave enigmatic advice to supplicants.

Day Nine  
Drive east up the valley of the Maeander river, through some magnificent scenery to Aphrodisias, an elegant city further from the sea than most Greek settlements. The mountains closeby produced very fine white marble, capable of taking a very polished finish, and the city became famous for its sculptors, who came here to take advantage of the resource. The handiwork of the workshops here have been documented by excavation and study, and now sculptures from Aphrodisias have been recognised in and around Rome, and as far away as Leptis Magna. Some of the best came from the Sebasteion on the site, dedicated to Aphrodite and the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian period. One of the panels depicts the Emperor Claudius defeating Britannia. The sculpture displays have recently re-opened after a period of restoration.

Day Ten
Two little-visited ancient sites: Nysa, centre of learning (the Greek geographer Strabo studied rhetoric and grammar here) and Alinda, in a very beautiful setting. Little has been excavated here, and not much is known of its early history, but its importance in the Hellenistic and Roman periods is reflected in some impressive remains, including a three-storeyed market.
 

Day Eleven
Temple of Zeus at Euromos; the mini-Mausoleum at Milas; and the deserted city at Stratonikeia, where the remains of the ancient city stand amongst traditional village houses which were abandoned after an earthquake in 1957.
 

Day Twelve
Bodrum (Halicarnassos), a Carian city, whose ruler, Mausolus, had such a magnificent tomb built for himself in the 4th century BC that it became one of the seven ancient wonders, and its name became a generic one - the Mausoleum. The Shipwreck Museum contains the burial of the Carian Princess Ada, which was one of the reconstructed head projects in which John Prag, Guide Lecturer in April was closely involved.

Day Thirteen  
Fly home from Bodrum.

Included

WHAT’S INCLUDED

• Flights Scheduled flights with Turkish Airlines: Heathrow/Istanbul; Bodrum/Istanbul/Heathrow
• Transfers private coach provided to coincide with group flights
• Local Travel Private a/c coach
• Meals All meals included; drinks (except water) are not included
• Guide Lecturer (also local guides where these are compulsory) Not to be confused with "guest lecturers"!  The guide lecturer will be with you from breakfast to supper, and probably even a drink in the bar afterwards.  There is the occasional site where they may not be allowed to guide because of local regulations (we normally manage to circumnavigate these) but otherwise the guides are just that.  They will have been chosen because of specialist knowledge and their ability to communicate and interest you.  After 22 years of making tours worldwide, we are highly appreciative of the attributes of a good guide, and intensely critical of people who do not possess them.  If you would like to know more about Professor John Prag or Professor William Manning, please click their name.
• Tour Manager We never know how best to call the very special people whom we choose to accompany you on your tour.  They are usually employed in this capacity only by us, and have been trained to do things in the Andante way - unobtrusive, friendly and quietly efficient.
• Local Guide
• Fieldnotes written for the tour
• Entry & tips Entry to all sites in programme; tips included.

Flights & Visa

Airline: Turkish Airlines
TK1980           London Heathrow/ Istanbul            11:25/ 17:20
TK2507           Bodrum/ Istanbul                             10:20/ 11:30
TK1985          Istanbul/ London Heathrow            13:10/ 15:15

Please note these flights are an indication of what the flights are likely to be. Please contact the office for exact details

Visa and Passport Requirements (for British passport holders only)*

Note: Visa obtained on arrival upon presentation of £10 note.

Passport should be valid for at least 6 months on entry to Turkey

Hotels

2 nights in Istanbul;
1 night in Assos;
1 night in a beachside hotel near the pretty harbour of Ayvalik; 
5 nights in an attractive hotel in Kusadasi, on its own headland, surrounded by gardens and terraces; 
3 nights in a smart hotel set in lovely gardens which incorporate some of the ancient city in the heart of Bodrum.

Comments

What Did You Enjoy Most About This Tour?

Ed: I was interested to note recently, when looking to see where the people on this tour had heard about us, that someone had found out about us whilst eavesdropping on a bus!  This person rang and said the people in front of her had been saying how completely wonderful their holiday in Turkey was with Trevor.  She went home and googled Turkey+Trevor+Archaeology and came up with us...  Extraordinary!  Trevor, by the way, is Professor Trevor Watkins, who has just retired (to our great sadness).  But the tour continues fantastic.  Please speak very loudly about us on buses....

"I loved the bath house at Sardis. Priene was magical. The carvings at Aphrodisias were amazing. The photogenic castle at Bodrum, the contrast of Labraunda. The eerie place of Stratonikeia and all the rest!"

"Ephesus was very spectacular and I particularly found most interesting the Roman terraced houses. All the sites in the middle of nowhere surrounded by olive trees and amazing wild flowers were fantastic."

"Well informed and helpful staff. Pleasant companions, marvellous visits."

"People on other tours had all enthused about this one.  They were right, it more than lived up to our expectations.  The combination of ancient sites in beautiful settings combined with warm sunshine and spring flowers made this truly remarkable."

Reading List

 

 

This list is no more than a guide to some books that you may find useful to read in advance of the tour. Talks given on the tour will attempt to fill in the background to what we are seeing, so no prior knowledge or pre-tour cramming is expected or needed. In many cases, we expect that you will find some of these books even more interesting and useful to read once the tour is over.

Guide Lecturer's Choice: (if you only want to read one or two books)

"The English Patient" brought Herodotus' Histories into the bestseller lists - rightly so:  there is no better person to introduce one to the ancient Greeks on both sides of the Aegean or to revive old friendships. There are many translations, of which the Penguin edition by Aubrey de Selincourt (revised 1972) and the Oxford Worlds Classic by Robin Waterfield (1998) are probably the most accessible.

If you want a guide book, Bernard McDonagh's Blue Guide to Turkey (3rd ed, London/New York, 2001) is the most detailed, and it has been recently rewritten by an author who knows the material well and who knows which authorities to use to reinforce his own knowledge.

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NEW

Antonio Sagona, Paul Zimansky (2009) Ancient Turkey (Routledge World Archaeology). Covering the entire span before the Classical period, fully illustrated with over 160 images and written in lively prose, this text will be enjoyed anyone interested in the archaeology and early history of Turkey and the ancient Near East.

Guide books:

The Rough Guide to Turkey (London 2007) is lively and generally reliable. The information on sites and archaeology is secondary, in the sense that it has been collected by professional guide-book writers from other published sources.  The Rough Guides also have a website which can give you up-to-the-minute information of all sorts - http://www.roughguides.com

A sound new guide, though not particularly detailed on the archaeological sites, is Turkey in the Neos series published by Michelin Travel Publications, 2000.

Having mentioned one web-site, there is a growing number of websites about archaeology of which one set up by Michigan University on Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology is relevant to this tour: http://rome.classics.lsa.umich.edu/welcome.html

John Freely is an American academic who has lived many years in Turkey and built up a deep knowledge of Turkish archaeology, especially of the Classical period. His books The Western Shores of Turkey (John Murray, London 1988), Companion Guide to Turkey (London 1979), and Classical Turkey (Viking/Penguin Architectural Guides for Travellers, Harmondsworth 1991) are all relevant, very readable, and much more than site guides.

George E Bean, who lived and worked in Turkey for many years, wrote a series of highly readable books on the archaeology and ancient history of the various regions of Turkey.  The two which are relevant to this tour are Aegean Turkey (London, Ernest Benn, New York, W W Norton 1979; later edition by John Murray, London) and Turkey beyond the Maeander (John Murray, London 1989).

The recent publication of a series of individual site guides is a very welcome development, especially as they are largely the result of initiatives from Turkish publication houses.  These guides are often written by senior members of the relevant excavation teams, and contain excellent up-to-the-minute historical, archaeological and architectural information about the particular site and its surrounding

area.  All of these are available through Oxbow books in England, and most can also be purchased at the sites themselves.  The guides that are relevant to this tour are: Troy (Istanbul, 2001) by Manfred Korfmann, Assos (Istanbul, 1995) by Ümit Sergaroglu, Ephesos (Istanbul, 2000) by Peter Scherrer, & Priene (Istanbul, 1998) by Frank Rumscheid.  For Troy there is also Troia/Wilusa by Manfred Korfmann and Dietrich P. Mannsperger, (Cannakale-Tübingen Troai Vafki Foundation series no. 1, (Cannakale, 2005), available at the site.

Traveller's Tales:

Many travellers have written journals of their journeys through Turkey. Richard Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor 1764-65 has been re-issued in an edited and abridged version by Edith Clay by the British Museum in 1971. Also interesting is Charles Fellows, An Account of Discoveries in Lycia (London 1841), and Travels and Researches in Asia Minor (London 1852).

More recently, Freya Stark's Ionia: A Quest (London 1954), The Lycian Shore (London 1956) and Alexander's Path (London 1958) describe journeys made in Turkey by this redoubtable lady.  Sybille Haynes' The Land of the Chimaera (London 1974) describes a month's "archaeological excursion in south-western Turkey".

General:

Most of what we shall see belongs to the Classical Greek, Hellenistic and Roman imperial period. There is an enormous (and still growing) literature on Greek and Roman art, architecture and archaeology, where everyone has his or her favourites.  The following are only intended to serve as pointers. For periods earlier than the Classical and later than the Roman Empire, there are far fewer books that are accessible (meaning both readable, and likely to be found in a public library or bookshop)

Architecture, Town-planning:

R.E. Wycherley, How the Greeks Built Cities (London 1962)

R.A. Tomlinson, Greek and Roman Architecture (London 1995) or

R.A. Tomlinson, Greek Architecture (Bristol 1989)

Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (4th ed.: Harmondsworth 1986)

J. A. Hamilton (1956) Byzantine Architecture and Decoration, London, Batsford.

George Mitchell (editor), (1995) Architecture of the Islamic World. Thames & Hudson, London. Beautifully illustrated, and helps to put Ottoman architecture into its Islamic context.

J.B. Ward-Perkins Roman Imperial Architecture (Harmondsworth 1981)

Lawrence, A.W. (Revised R.A. Tomlinson) (1996) Greek Architecture (Yale)

Art:

John Boardman, Greek Art (London 1964, with more recent revisions). Any book by John Boardman will be worth consulting:  he has written a very useful and comprehensive series of books on the different periods of vase-painting and Greek sculpture, all published in hardback and paperback by Thames & Hudson.

John Boardman (ed.), The Oxford History of Classical Art (Oxford 1993).  Covers Greek and Roman art and architecture.

JJ. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age, Cambridge, 1986 (includes a chapter on architecture).

J.M. Rogers and R.M. Ward (1988) Süleyman the Magnificent. British Museum Publications. Published in parallel with a major exhibition in London. Recommended as a beautifully illustrated introduction to the arts and crafts of the Ottoman court at its peak.

There are also useful introductory handbooks published by major museums in this country (e.g. The British Museum, Ashmolean Museum) and very good introductions by Brian A Sparkes such as Greek Art (Oxford 1991) and Greek Pottery: an Introduction (Manchester 1991).

Nancy H Ramage and Andrew Ramage Roman Art (London 1995)

History:

Seton Lloyd, Ancient Turkey: A Traveller's History of Anatolia (London 1989) gives a good historical overview.

John Boardman, The Greeks Overseas (4th ed.: London 1999) covers the whole period of Greek  contact and settlement in scholarly but easily comprehensible detail.

Richard Stoneman, A Traveller's History of Turkey (Adlestrop, Moreton in Marsh 1993) is particularly useful in providing a synopsis of the whole history of the country from prehistoric times to the present day.

Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity (London 1993).

On medieval and modern Turkey:

Robert Browning, The Byzantine Empire (London 1980)

Averil Cameron, The Byzantines (Oxford 2006).

Andrew Wheatcroft, The Ottomans (Harmondsworth 1995).

Patrick Kinross, Atatürk: The Rebirth of a Nation (London 1974) is fundamental (or for those who prefer

their history in novel form, The Dark Moment by Ann Bridge (London 1970) is a good and not inaccurate

read of the events that shaped modern Turkey).

Erich Zürcher, Turkey: a Modern History (London 1993).

Ancient Texts:

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War (e.g. transl. Rex Warner, revised by M.I. Finley: Harmondsworth 1972): where Herodotus describes everything that may be of relevance to allow the reader to make up his own mind about the cause and course of the Persian Wars, Thucydides is highly selective in his account of the war that ended with the defeat of Athens by Sparta:  book VIII describes events in the Aegean, where we shall be travelling.

Strabo, The Geography, written around the turn of our era, books XII-XIV cover modern-day Turkey.  The Loeb parallel text is probably the most accessible (Harvard/London 1923/1988), and the relevant books can be found in volumes V and VI of this series.

The Letters of the Younger Pliny (Transl. Betty Radice, Harmondsworth 1963, with many later reprints). The letters that Pliny the Younger wrote to the Emperor Trajan when he was Governor of Bithynia (on the Black Sea coast of Turkey) throw a unique light on the problems of governing a Roman Province in Turkey.  The most accessible translation is by Betty Radice in Penguin Classics; the letters to Trajan forming Book 10.

And, of course, Homer's Iliad, of which various translations are readily available: those by Robert Fagles (Penguin) are recommended, and Christopher Logue's adaptations War Music, Kings and Husbands (Faber) make interesting reading.

Something different:

John Prag and Richard Neave, Making Faces using Forensic and Archaeological Evidence (British Museum Press 1997, repr. 1999) introduces the reader to the actual appearance of some of the people we shall meet.

Other books:

Irfan Orga (1988) Portrait of a Turkish Family.  One of the excellent classics reproduced by the admirable Eland Books.  It is the saga of an Ottoman family through the First World War, the end of the Ottoman Empire and the early years of the Turkish Republic.

Louis de Bernières, Birds without Wings, Vintage 2005.  His latest (and probably longest) novel set in SW Anatolia (Fethiye) and describing Greek and Turkish lives that fell apart in the horrors of 1922-23.

The novels by the Nobel laureate Orhan's Pamuk are all worth reading: relevant to this tour is the autobiographical Istanbul: Memories of a City (London 2005).

Colin Thubron Emperor, Penguin.  An historical novel set in the time of Constantine.

Noel Barber (1973) Lords of the Golden Horn, Macmillan, London.

Robert Graves, Count Belisarius. Set in Late Roman /early Byzantine times, a fine historical novel. Still in print with Penguin Books.

And, of course, there is always Rose Macaulay, even though we shall not visit The Towers of Trebizond.

Travel books

We recommend to you a publishing company with a mission to keep the classic works of travel literature in print. Eland and Sickle Moon Books produce an excellent catalogue of travellers' literature, old and new.

+44 (0) 20 7833 0762 - www.travelbooks.co.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Archaeology books

Oxbow Books, based in Oxford, are suppliers of probably the biggest range of archaeology and history books. They produce a quarterly catalogue, and can be contacted on

+44 (0)1865 241249 - www.oxbowbooks.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

General

Darf Publishers Ltd - specialises in good quality facsimile reprints of out-of-print and rare books written in the 18th and 19th centuries, predominantly books on the geography, culture, history, literature and theology of the Middle East and North Africa.

+44 (0) 20 7431 7009 - www.darfpublishers.co.uk

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