Second visit to Stratonikeia

Merhaba,

Tomorrow there is a pot-luck dinner at Sailor’s Point. As I’d made my famous “poor man’s caviar” for the “chip and dip” do last Saturday, Randal is down in the galley making our dish for tomorrow night. He’s making slow-cooker stew because it will be more of a dinner thing than a drinks thing. (I refuse to call it a cocktail party because that conjures up images of “your dressed up parents” rather than cruisers in jeans and sweaters. “ A drinks thing” says BBC to me and two of my new favorite British TV characters Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme of Rosemary & Thyme fame.)

There are lots of choices of festivities here for the next few weeks and we’ll take part in one or two of them.

My bread Menorah is starting to reek of burnt toast from all of the melted candles so this will most likely be my one and only bread Menorah. My friend Har emailed me her “make your own Menorah” story. “ My favorite Hannukah memory – which you reminded me of – was visiting my Bubby in NY. She had given away all her menorahs and I was visiting. She went down to her basement, came up with a pot of dirt, stuck in the Hannukah candles and we were all set!!” Wish I’d thought of that…but the bread here is so lovely to look at.

Stratonikeia in Muğla’s Yatağan district.

“Excavations at the ancient city of Stratonikeia in the Aegean province of Muğla’s Yatağan district have uncovered 15 reliefs estimated to be 2,300 years old. The masks feature mythological gods and have been engraved into marble blocks.

The theater currently under excavation in Stratonikeia was one of the most important centers for education and culture during its day, the head of the excavations Professor Bilal Söğüt said. “We have recently found 15 2,300-year-old reliefs of mythological gods chiseled out of marble blocks. The reliefs support written documents describing the time period.”

Excavation work in Stratonikeia is giving archeologists and historians a glimpse into the social life and cultural events of this ancient age, according to Söğüt.

“The masks that we had previously found were of small figures used in theater plays, but these are reliefs of the figures. They will be displayed in their own place after restoration and conversation works. This will take long time, however, and is why we show these masks to visitors in the appropriate place.”

October/16/2012 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/PrintNews.aspx?PageID=383&NID=32470

The “theater” at Stratonikeia

When we came here last August with Bill and Judy it was about a zillion degrees and dry as dust. This time we had cool weather, puddles to avoid from earlier rain, but lots of sunlight and shadows. There were even few people around this visit than last…we were just about the only people around at all. There was no one to tell us not to go somewhere and no signs saying No Entrance which I can even read in Turkish. So we went and discovered the huge theater.

http://www.mydoramac.com/wordpress/?p=12293 tells about our August visit and the history of Stratonikeia.