Le Blog de Duygu: Temple & Philosopher

Goddess of wisdom; known as Minerva by Romans, Athena by Ancient Greeks.

Aristotle, philosopher; known as teacher of Alexander the Great and philosopher

One is from ancient spiritual world, other one is a scholar.

Can you separate those two, religion and science? They both born from needs of mankind, one regulates the nonmaterial world, other tries to explain how the material world works.

In my mind, science and religion are attached to each other. No wonder those are my words, my thoughts but under the sun there is a place where science and religion league together…

Temple

Ruins of Athena Temple

Assos, known as Behramkale, a small place where academy of Aristotle is and Temple of Athena reaches to the sky.

Assos was ruled by so many civilisations, Aeolians from Lesbos, Persians and Romans. Persians expelled from Assos of Alexander the Great; city also was ruled by Kings of Pergamon.

Unhappily during my visit to Assos, ancient city was closed, I don’t know the reason. I only saw Athena Temple.

Construction of temple was begun at the second half of 6 century BC; temple was dedicated to Athens, the guardian of the city.

Temple is very important for ancient architecture. Signboard, located at the entrance of Assos says “Athena Temple is the first and only Doric temple of archaic period of Anatolia. At the same time, temple is the only sample which consists Doric and Ion architectural characteristics together. For further information, please refer to http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Assos,%20Temple%20of%20Athena&object=Building

I suppose, people of Assos didn’t know they built such a unique structure, they only intended to please their Goddess. I hope they achieved to please Athena and found inner peace.

Temple was build to highest hill of the city; so that Athena could protect Assos.

I climbed to the hill; Guardian of the city welcomed me with warm winds and sunlight. Unfortunately many of temple is in ruins, but even the ruins are charmful. Well, I’m always touched with ancient cities. Athena was lucky, hill is surrounded with an amazing view, Aegean Sea, wuthering heights…

After visiting Temple, I stopped by a small café of village which is run by a villager. They have delicious gözleme. I recommend you to have gözleme with white cheese and ayran, after climbing a steep hill, eating and resting will be good.

(for gözleme; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6zleme)