A-Z Guidebook: Ancient Ruins of Picturesque Pergamon

P is for Pergamon, Turkey

When we lived in Turkey, we tried to visit as many historical sites as we could. We loved taking road trips over the long holiday weekends during the year and exploring the ancient ruins, which I still think are even better than ones in Greece. On one such Turkey trip, we visited the historical site of Pergamon, an ancient Greek city, located 26 km (16 miles) from the Aegean Sea and about 90 minutes north of Izmir.

Pergamon (also called Pergamum) was settled by the Greeks in the 8th century BC, and was ruled by one of Alexander the Great’s generals around 320 BC as part of the Kingdom of Pergamon. The city was given to the Roman Republic in 133 BC to prevent a civil war, and briefly became the capital of the Roman province of Asia before the capital was transferred to Ephesus. The latter history included many different rulers and conquerors as well as a damaging earthquake that pretty much displaced the population. In 2014, Pergamon was added to the UNESCO World heritage list for Turkey.

Pergamon also is considered an important Biblical place as it is cited in the Book of Revelation as one of the Seven Churches of Asia.

As usual, the Greeks picked an excellent natural setting for a theater, with a view that extends for miles and would have included Aegean Sea views approximately 2,000 years ago. The acropolis of Pergamum covers a steep hilltop, so you can only imagine how much Greek and Roman civil engineering work went into creating this amazing structure!

Just hanging out at the ancient Greek theater at Pergamon, Turkey.

Another interesting fact is that Pergamum was a great center of learning and once had a huge library of 200,000 scrolls that were (probably and unfortunately) given to Cleopatra by Marc Antony as a wedding gift in 41 BC. At least, you can still see the remains of the library here today.

During our visit, we simply enjoyed walking around the site of Pergamon on our own and taking photos as often as possible. It still amazes me how many historical sites like this Turkey has and that locals as well as archaeologists are still discovering these today such as a Poseidon mosaic recently found in southwestern Turkey.

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I’m linking this post to the monthly travel guide link up organized by Fiona, a fellow Australian blogger, at Tiffin Bite Sized Food Adventures. Each month features a new letter of the alphabet. This month is the letter “P.” Please pop on over to Fiona’s blog to read more travel stories or feel free to link up your own!