Pergamon

One of Alexander the Great’s generals established this city on the top of a hill (arcropolis). The city grew up around an ancient temple to Zeus, whose foundations can be seen under these three trees.

The name of the city is related to our word “parchment’ which means “Pergamon paper.” It’s place in history is related to it’s library. The great library of Pergamon contained 20,000 books and was second only to the library in Alexandria. Our tour guide is pointing out the reading room of the ancient library and to the right is Suzanne who has taken most the the pictures I have posted from our trip.

When John wrote his Apocalypse letter to Pergamon, he referred to “the seat of Satan” which referred to either that pagan temple to Zeus or to the more prominent monument the Romans set up there to honor their emperor as a divine being.

Today Pergamon is famous for its hand woven rugs. We visited a carpet factory there to see young girls weaving the Persian carpets. It is a labor intensive project which requires three months to complete one medium size carpet. The woolen rugs are the less expensive as they contain fewer knots per square inch of material, next is cotton, and the most expensive are the silk carpets which contain hundreds of tiny knots per square centimeter of fabric and make take years to weave. Because each knot of material is cut off at an angle, the coloring of the hand woven carpets changes depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The brightest colors appear when the carpet is viewed from the angle of the cut.

The Red Courtyard of Pergamon is a square surrounded by the town at the base of its acropolis. It was built as a temple for Egyptian gods, but later was used as a Christian Church. The present day town is full of shops displaying their local carpets and weavings. At the factory we were shown how silk is extracted from the cocoon and spun into rolls of thread on the spinning wheel. Images used by St. Teresa immediately came to mind.

After Pergamon, we drove to Thiratira, our last pilgrimage to the seven of John’s Apocalyptic churches to which he writes in the 2nd and 3rd chapters of the book of Revelation.
We spent the night in Bursa. Excuse me, the call for evening prayer just rang out of the minarets. We are constantly reminded that we are in a Moslem country. The next morning we visited the famous green Mosque in Bursa. It is surrounded by the oldest Sycamore trees I’ve ever seen. They must be centuries old, some perhaps as old as the mosque itself.