Day 109 - World's largest jigsaw puzzle

Izmir to Selçuk – Canberra Hotel

Mary's House

A short bus trip today to Selçuk, where we were collected from the bus station by the very helpful owner of Hotel Canberra. When we asked him how the hotel got its name he said it was to make it easy for the Australians to remember so they can recommend it to their friends – told you there were a lot of Aussies here!

He also gave us some excellent advice on visiting Ephesus, the main attraction in Selçuk. In the mornings the place is incredibly busy with tourists from the big cruise ships, so he suggested we should visit later in the day, around 3pm.

Our first stop was Mary’s House and we were so pleased we had taken his advice, as we thought there were a lot of people there, but apparently it wasn’t many compared to the mornings! It is believed that this is where the Apostle John took Mary for the remainder of her life after Jesus asked him to take care of her, and also that she was secretly buried somewhere in the vicinity.

Celsus Library, Ephesus

Ephesus is an amazing site, so much bigger than we had expected and very interesting to watch some of the reconstruction work happening before our eyes. It is known as the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle, where crates and crates of broken pieces are waiting to be assembled by people working on others on large tables. There were also people working on cleaning the murals. One thing we have really been surprised at in our archaeological visits so far is how much work there still is to do.

So little has been uncovered and reconstructed that if we revisited both here and Ethiopia in 10 or 20 years time we expect there would be so much more to see. Every site has what looks like a graveyard of assorted pieces of stone (columns, friezes, statues, etc.) waiting for the day when they’ll be matched up and restored to their former glory.