- Elliot (1803-1875) was a member of the clergy in England. This account discusses his wide travels in eastern Europe. -
(pg. 98) Thyatira is somewhat farther from Philadelphia in a north-westerly, than Laodicea is in a south-easterly, direction. The moon shone brightly two hours before sunrise, as we rode out of the gate of Ala Shehr and crossed over the wide plain watered by the Hermus and one of its branches, leaving Tmolus and its rugged peaks on our left; whence as we receded the scope of vision became enlarged, and those peaks proved to be only the outline of a lower ridge, above which the towering summits of the noble mountain, hitherto concealed, now developed themselves. The country, rich in resources but devoid of living agents, teems only with the dead. In a ride of six hours to Adala, we passed cemetery after cemetery, silent, large, and full, and but two solitary villages.
(pg. 99) Before entering Adala, we forded the main branch of the Hermus, called Careechaee, measuring perhaps a hundred yards in width; and observed a cart-track, the only symptom of a vehicle on wheels that we met with in the interior of Asia Minor. The village contains about eighty Turkish families and a few poor Greeks who have apartments in the khan. Every town and large village in Turkey is provided with this accommodation for strangers. Those in the capital have already been described. A country khan is very similar. It consists of four walls forming a square, with a gate locked at night. In the enclosure are small rooms, with a door or window opening into the public quadrangle: the door has a key, and the window sometimes a shutter, but never any glass. For two or three pence a day, a stranger may hire a room for a longer or shorter period. The traveller is thus provided with a shelter for his bed, and a spot where he may place his goods and cook his food, if he be furnished, as is usual, with every necessary for that purpose. The porter of the khan generally keeps a caféné, where a cup of sugarless coffee may be procured; and the village will always supply coarse bread; but with these exceptions, the stranger is dependent entirely on his own resources. In a place of this description, as we were eating a cold fowl in the open quadrangle, a Turkish traveller, who entered the khan shortly after our arrival, unceremoniously came up to us and proceeded to help himself. The act wore the appearance of rudeness, but was not intended as such; for hospitality is carried to excess among the Moslims. When they are eating, any passer-by may join them; and we should have been as welcome to his kabab (a roasted scrap) as he considered himself to our fowl. The horses stand with singular patience while their masters refresh themselves: they are not accustomed to be fed in the middle of the day; and though the journey may be one of twelve or fourteen hours and the traveller offer to pay for the animals' provender, yet the sooreejee invariably declines to allow them to eat between morning and evening.
(pg. 101) We had scarcely left Adalaon the road to Marmora, which is more than half-way thence to Thyatira, when suddenly we came upon a long ridge of lava, black, barren, and irregular, as if recently ejected; about a mile in length, and of considerable breadth. The straightness of the line is remarkable, and the absence of any large mountain, to which its probable origin may be assigned, is still more so. Nevertheless, indications of volcanic eruptions in the neighbourhood are numerous: at intervals of five miles from one another, are three pits called "The Bellows," which were, doubtless, volcanoes; and it is supposed that the hills immediately above them were formed by the cinders they threw up. Ancient geographers speak of this tract of country under the appellation of "Κατακεκαυμένη," (Katakekaumene,) (This part of Lydia was known by the name of Maeonia) or "The burnt-up," applying the name to a district more than sixty miles from east to west, and fifty from north to south; and thus including Philadelphia, Laodicea in Lydia, and Hierapolis in Phrygia, all of which places are known to have suffered greatly from volcanic agency. The hot springs that have continued for upwards of two thousand years in and around Hierapolis sufficiently indicate the existence of subterranean furnaces; and that these extended far beyond the Katakekaumene is evident from the fact that Laodicea of Lycaonia was called "Laodicea Combusta." The whole surface of the surrounding country was formerly covered with ashes, and the stones and hills in the neighbourhood still continue black, exhibiting the action of fire.
(pg. 102) At the foot of the ridge of lava above mentioned, and for several miles in the vicinity, the cotton plant grows wild. The cotton had been picked by the peasants, but much still remained adhering to the trees, covering them with a natural fleecy hosiery whose snow-white hue contrasted strikingly with the jetty blackness of the volcanic stone.
In two hours we found ourselves once again opposite, though eight miles from, Sardis, while in the west was seen the tumulus of Halyattes and the Gygaean lake backed by a range of hills, behind which arose the summits of Sipylus. The tumulus stands on the top of a ridge, with two others about a quarter of the size of that of Halyattes, and five of inferior dimensions. On the opposite side are several still smaller. All are more or less conical in form and covered with grass. This was the cemetery of the Lydian kings ; to whom the words of the prophet may emphatically be applied, "All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house." (Isaiah xiv. 18) Each mound is built of brick or stone, but the masonry is concealed by the mould. The largest of these is one of the wonders of the world, and perhaps the most interesting antiquity in Asia Minor: Herodotus speaks of it as incomparably "the greatest work in Lydia; inferior only to those of the Egyptians and Babylonians." The height is two hundred, and the circumference about four thousand, feet: it was raised, B.C. 562, in honor of Halyattes, the father of Croesus, at a distance of five miles from the Lydian capital.
(pg. 103) At the north-west extremity of the low range of hills that support these numerous barrows is the Gygaean lake, which probably supplied, and was formed by the abstraction of, the earth taken to construct them: its superficial area may be sixteen square miles. The muddy water abounds in fish and rushes, and at some seasons is covered with wild ducks. On its banks formerly stood a temple dedicated to Diana, who was there said to manifest her divine power by working miracles; and the veneration entertained for the sacred edifice may account for the number of tumuli in the vicinity, as the Lydians might naturally have desired that their bones should rest under the immediate eye of their tutelary goddess.
(pg. 104) Between Adala and Marmora there is only a single village, called Jemeordum, standing at the foot of the range opposite Tmolus; the huts built of mud, with flat roofs and without windows, look in the distance like children's baby-houses. In front of these were a number of little mounds, resembling dwarf barrows, which we were informed were heaps of hay and straw covered with earth to protect them from the weather. Throughout this day's journey we saw not a single caféné except at Adala, and met scarcely a human being on the road. No strings of camels varied the monotony of the way, which lies over barren wastes producing nothing but a dry weed with seed like that of the dandelion, and a few brambles scorched and withered, as though their roots were struck in ashes. The hills surrounding the plain are equally sterile; one range is known by the name of "The dry mountains," from its utter destitution of vegetation. A few oxen, a single camel browsing, a wild dog in full chase after a hare, and some pewets and hawks, were the only living creatures we encountered. Yet, even here, in the midst of a natural solitude, and some hours' distant from any human habitation except the few houses that form the village of Jemeordum, an extensive and overflowing burial-ground warns the traveller that thousands of his fellow-creatures have here flitted away their ephemeral existence. If further proof were needed of the fact that this district was once peopled, it is afforded by several large basins for collecting water, and numerous deep wells lined with masonry, to the bottom of which a communication is formed by means of staircases.
(pg. 105) At a distance of three hours from Adala, the road, passing over a hill, enters a morass formed by the waters of the Gygaean lake, which sometimes overflow, and, then subsiding, leave it covered with a slimy deposit that feeds a noisome rush and engenders a pestilential miasma. This malaria has co-operated with a bad government to depopulate the country, and, extending to Sardis, has given rise to the prevalent dread of occupying a house on the site of the once famed capital of Lydia. The road runs for two hours along this morass and scarcely emerges from it when signs of cultivation are perceived within an hour of Marmora. The ground for many miles is covered with large pieces of quartz, schist, and marbles of various colors, the great abundance and numerous strata of which have given its name to the town, in like manner as the island in the Propontis is indebted for its designation to a similar circumstance.
(pg. 106) Marmora stands picturesquely on the acclivity of a high hill, occupying a position not unlike that of Philadelphia, and surrounded by fragments of pillars and ancient buildings scattered about in profusion. It contains five hundred houses, of which fifty belong to Greeks, who have a miserable church sunk considerably below the level of the ground, and a priest who can scarcely read. We entered the town by night. The moon had not yet risen, and the minarets of the mosques were lighted up, in honor of some holiday, with lamps hung out from their galleries, communicating to the scene an air peculiarly novel and striking. The neighbourhood abounds in leeches; one of which entered my mouth in a draught of milk, and adhered so fast to the gum that it was some moments before it could be disengaged.
(pg. 107) Within an hour and a half of Marmora, on the left of the road, lies the town of Giundeshlee Asrettee, the residence of a Turcoman chief named Mahmood Giundeshlee bey, who rules over the inhabitants of the wild tract occupied by emigrants from Turcomania, and borrowing from them its name. As they are all Sheeahs, or followers of Ali, they are regarded by the Turks as worse than infidels, and excluded from their government; to which disgrace they owe the privilege of having a chief of their own. The present is the first Turcoman bey. He holds directly from the sultan, and is responsible to no one else. Though his territory be extensive, yet his subjects are few, and likely to remain so. The total number of houses in Anatolian Turcomania is supposed to be a thousand; but this estimate may, or may not, approximate to the truth, as no statistical details are regularly registered in Turkey.
(pg. 108) From Marmora to Thyatira is a ride of four hours. In the road are several burial-grounds. The latter part of the way lies across a fine valley, winding between hills which limit the view, till suddenly the white minarets of the city appear among hundreds of poplars and dark-green cypresses. Two dilapidated windmills, which may be mistaken for more venerable ruins, stand on one side, and mountains rise in every direction.
Thyatira belonged originally to Mysia, but in later times was always included within the limits of Lydia. It was founded by a colony of Macedonians, enlarged by Seleucus Nicator, and chosen as a depôt of arms by Andronicus, who assumed the kingdom of Pergamus, B.C. 197, on the demise of Attalus. Four years afterwards, Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, supported by the abilities of Hannibal who had taken refuge at his court, collected his forces here before he encountered the Roman troops under Scipio Asiaticus on the plains between Thyatira and Sardis. Like Ephesus, this city was remarkable for its devotion to the "great goddess Diana." In Scripture it is mentioned as the birthplace of Lydia, a seller of purple who dwelt at Philippi in Macedonia and entertained the apostle Paul. Its modern name is Akhissar, or the white castle, and the neighbourhood is said to rival that of Tyre in the richness of its dyes.
(pg. 109) On an elevated table-land just outside the present walls, once stood, according to tradition, a royal palace of the Cesars, commanding a view of the rich plain of Thyatira embosomed in hills. The ground has every appearance of having been formed by the debris of ancient buildings mixed with animal and vegetable matter: in one quarter, a sarcophagus lies by the side of the excavation whence it seems to have been lately dug, and what appears to be the corner of another has been laid bare by the spade ; but the natives have so little taste for antiquities and are so unenterprising, that they regard the labor of disinterring it as more than the probable benefit. The inscription on that which is above ground is well preserved; and it is to be hoped that some future traveller will investigate at leisure the subterranean treasures of this spot.
Mapping by Bryn E. Ford, Version 1 (February 2017)