Pergamum (Bergama) - Part I

Unlike Smyrna and Ephesus, Pergamum was nowhere near the sea. There's a modern town, which is Bergama, with an ancient church/temple/mosque and a statue of a famous Roman doctor Galen:

I asked about the snake coiling around the pillar, and I was told that it's connected to the snakes on the caduceus, that famous symbol of doctors with two snakes coiling around a staff between wings.

Anyway, here are the pictures of the church/temple/mosque:

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out which Egyptian god this is. I think the general consensus is that it's supposed to be Anubis, the death god with the jackal head.

From later in the day, and from a different angle.

After this, we went up to the ancient city center of Pergamum. The guide said that this was not where people would have lived, but where major events, such as plays and government and worship, would have happened. The hill to get up there is so steep that we couldn't walk; instead, we rode in a cable car:

It was a long way down.

After that ride, we got to the top:

Even at the top of the hill, we still had to do some steep walking!

In my posts about Ephesus, when I talked about the temples of Hadrian and Domitian, what I don't think I mentioned is that those were places dedicated to worshiping the emperors Hadrian and Domitian. The worship of Roman emperors, either before their death or after, is today referred to as the Imperial Cult. Worshiping the emperor (or former emperors) in the Roman Empire was more of a political act than a religious act, but it was something that Christians refused to do, for which many of them were persecuted (that link only talks about the persecutions in the end of the third century, not earlier persecutions). 

The pictures below are from the Trajaneum, which was used for worshiping the Emperor Trajan:

I assume this was Trajan when the head was still there

This was a fountain off to the side of the temple. We were told that if we made a wish and the coin landed on the stone in the middle, the wish would come true.  

After looking at the temple, we went behind it to look over at a lake made by damming up the river, and also at some of the buildings on the side of the hill:

Looking back at the Trajaneum

After this, we left the Trajaneum to look around the edge of the city: 

Looking carefully in this next picture, you can see the remains of a Roman aqueduct that brought water to the city:

It's a long way down! 

These walls went all around the city. I think I remember someone saying that the red stones were probably from the Byzantines, because they didn't have quite as graceful architecture as the ancients.

Unlike in Ephesus, I caught a glimpse of the Theater in advance.

The Trajaneum from another angle

If I remember correctly, this was a temple to Augustus. It's to the side of the Theater,

Two more ancient buildings in the middle of this pictures

Looking up in the middle of those arches

This was past the arches, looking out at the edge of the city wall

The rest of Pergamum in a later post!