Z is
for Zeugma Museum
For
my final contribution to the A-Z Guidebook posts, I’ve dug back into my photo archives from five years ago
when we visited the Zeugma Museum
located in Gaziantep, southeast
Turkey.
In
2012, the museum, less than a year old then, was fascinating because it is the
world’s largest mosaic museum – containing 1700m2 of priceless mosaics from the
ancient Roman town of Zeugma, which means “bridge” or “crossing” in ancient
Greek.
Wandering
through partly reconstructed ancient Roman villas, excavated on-site around the
Euphrates river, one can almost travel back in time to nearly 2,000 years ago
when Zeugma was a popular trading center along the Silk Road route to China. Zeugma
was founded along the river in 300 BC by one of the generals of Alexander the
Great and reach its peak in the 3rd century AD before being abandoned
due to raids and earthquakes.
Today,
much of the ancient town and its modern counterpart of Belkıs lie under the
reservoir created by the construction of one of Turkey's largest dams in 2000. The
massive Birecik Dam is located less than a mile from the site.
Fortunately,
international archaeologists were able to save many artifacts and these
impressive mosaics before the dam flooded the area. The Zeugma Museum attempts
to recreate the atmosphere that once prevailed in this prosperous Roman town.
Though you’ll find plenty of Greek and Roman gods preserved in the mosaics, my
favorite is the Gypsy Girl, known for her emotive eyes that seem to follow you
wherever you go in the dark room where she now lives.
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,
who has kindly hosted this link-up for the past 26 months! Thank you! Each
month featured a new letter of the alphabet. This month is the letter “Z.”
Please pop on over to Fiona’s blog to read more A-Z travel stories or feel free
to link up your own!
3 comments:
Hi Joy. What a wonderful experience that must have been to see this. Such a shame the dam has now drowned the original site. Turkey sounds a bit scary now. Cheers and yay we did it!:). 26 months of posts.
The world's largest mosaic museum in Gaziantep is fast becoming one of Southeast Turkey's major cultural attractions. You must need to visit there. Thanks for sharing!
One of the first lessons I learned on the road was that your plans will nearly always change. You’ll arrive in a place and want to leave immediately, or you’ll fall in love with a destination and want to spend longer there.
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