What fate awaits the Apollon Temple at Didyma?

Submitted by Iza on Tue, 07/05/2022 - 17:57

Text and photos by our correspondent from Didyma, Glenn Maffia.

And so it begins, when friends from many a foreign shore start to descend into this timeless ancient Ionian landscape. Full with wonderment and, contrary to the sun-seeking hordes, a thirst for what remains of our shared historic past. Though we have been known to quench the dusty dryness with a cold beer or two in the often torrid heat.

Euromos: Restoration of the Temple of Zeus

Submitted by Iza on Mon, 06/20/2022 - 19:14

Text and photos by our correspondent from Didyma, Glenn Maffia.

For a number of months I have been reading about the ongoing restoration of the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos located within the antique city of Euromos, approximately halfway between Didim and Bodrum on Türkiye's south-western Aegean shore. It hasn’t made for pleasurable reading from my point of view, I can assure you.

Ambitions to be met

Submitted by Iza on Wed, 04/06/2022 - 17:03

Text by our correspondent from Didyma, Glenn Maffia.

My previous two articles have afforded me to espouse upon the relatively minor, inexpensive, tweaks to the appearance around the Temple of Apollo which shall enable visitors to better appreciate the elegant antique architecture that stands as a symbol to this growing vacation resort. Namely, clean the graffiti, smarten the surrounding abodes and secure the perimeter walls, whilst also officially opening the Sacred Road to the public.

Column base from the second temple in Didyma, now in the Excavation House. Photo credit: Glenn Maffia

Shall good fortune be fleeting?

Submitted by Iza on Mon, 03/28/2022 - 16:26

Text and photos by our correspondent from Didyma, Glenn Maffia.

My trustworthy observers were once again active last week within the vicinity of the Temple of Apollo. They reported that though the Sacred Road continues to be securely locked and bolted along its closest juncture to the temple a surprising touch of good fortune revealed itself when driving from Mavişehir into the centre of Didyma village (also known locally as Hisar or Yoran).

Sacred Road at the end of the field, Didyma

Not much change to the writing on the wall

Submitted by Iza on Mon, 03/21/2022 - 10:56

Text and photos by our correspondent from Didyma, Glenn Maffia.

An ever vigilant friend messaged me last week to say that after meeting with some people close to the Temple of Apollo in Didyma she decided to walk home taking a route around the back of the Temple’s outer perimeter wall.

What she observed appalled her; sections of the fencing which top the walls had been ripped or weathered down, the ageing walls themselves (constructed in the early 1900s to deter the villagers from entering the active archaeological site) are in a sorry condition with some of the stones toppled during the last large earthquake in 2019, whilst the stones in the ‘hidden from the public’ areas have been blighted by that adolescent curse of daubing their names in spray paint. The site, therefore, is not secured in the slightest, and the sight of the spray paint an abomination to those who happen upon all this graffiti.