Izmir

A man fishing on the promenade in Izmir

What’s been so lovely on this trip is the ability to go to places, on a whim. We had a rough idea of where to go in Turkey, but not a whole lot. So it was a pleasant surprise to end up in Izmir, a city whose name was unknown to me before this trip. I’ve heard of Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya… but Izmir? We learned about Izmir from our host in Istanbul (it’s his hometown) and since we were heading south anyway, we decided to check it out.

First impression was that the city felt like a modern (read: Western) university city. People on the street were more relaxed than Istanbul and the atmosphere felt very international. It turns out that Izmir is the third largest city in the country and largely considered to be the most liberal city in Turkey, which just means that people are able to consume alcohol in public spaces and people aren’t dressed conservatively (read: very few women cover their heads). Our host in Izmir also said that the city is more egalitarian, that there’s less inequality in Izmir.

Izmir is an old city. It went back to 1000 BC when it was an old Greek settlement. Izmir (previously called Smyrna), along with Ephesus and Pergamom were the three most important cities in the Roman province of Asia.

On our second day, we visited the agora – the old marketplace/city-hall from 4th century BC. It was late afternoon and there were very few people at the site, a contrast to our experience at the agora in Athens. I counted more stray dogs than tourists, roughhousing on the grassy patch and taking a nap in the old cistern underground.

Corinthian colonnade at the Agora of Smyrna

We walked around, admiring the vaulted chambers, the aqueducts, and the remains of the basilicas which resembled the architecture of the Gothic churches we saw all over Europe, except that these were older.

In front of one of the water channels that fed the fountain, there was a sign:

Water channels big enough for a person to pass easily through them have been identified beneath the modern city within the agora and south of it.

Today water from an unidentified source still flow through these channels; it is understood that they were used from the Roman period down to Ottoman times. The water flowing from the terracotta pipe here comes from the above-mentioned channels.

Water from an unidentified source that was piped in almost two thousand years ago somehow still flows freely until now. Amazing.

It made me pause and consider the myth of progress and evolution that we always know better than our ancestors, that our modern knowledge trumps their ancient ones. These ancient cities with their modern aqueducts and sewage systems and public baths and city planning and architectural marvels (considering the tools available to them then) always made me wonder if there were aspects of ancient civilizations that are actually more advanced than ours.

It reminded me of a quote I read a few months ago:

There is an embedded assumption in evolutionary theory that the human race came from some prehuman source and through natural selection is heading someplace incredible, some peak of evolution that is our ultimate destination.

This belief naturally engenders the perspective that the human achievements of the past were all right for our ancestors,but in the here-and-now are obviously primitive and hopelessly old-fashioned.

Too, where we are now is better though not as good as where we are going. There is thus an inescapable disrespect for the cultures of the past and an inherent though subtle denigration of our present state, and a desire to get where we are going so we can finally be of worth, finally be evolved, that affects nearly all Western perspectives.

Stephen Harrod Buhner, “Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation”

And what if there were some knowledge that they had, that were unfortunately not written or documented or passed down, and so they’re forever lost to history and humanity is worse off as a result?

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