7 Day West Turkey Tour by Public Bus From Istanbul

A 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul links four stops: Istanbul, Cappadocia, Pamukkale and Ephesus. Day two is Istanbul, days three and four are Cappadocia, and days five and six are the west. Islands are covered by Greece Tours on the homepage.

Day seven ends in Istanbul. Booking cards sit between the sections and open GetYourGuide pages for the same stops.

How is the Blue Mosque of Istanbul built, as described in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Four large piers carry its dome, as told in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Mosque design adds four half-domes, six minarets and a courtyard, the work of Sedefkar Mehmed Agha, a pupil of Sinan.

The Blue Mosque is one stop in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Mosque work began in sixteen oh nine, ordered by Sultan Ahmed I. Work on the whole complex of buildings around it ran to sixteen twenty. Ahmed I ruled from sixteen oh three until sixteen seventeen.

Prefer the whole country? Turkey tours on the homepage reach the Aegean, the plateau and the south.

Sedefkar Mehmed Agha is thought to have been born near Elbasan. His surname points to twenty years of work in mother-of-pearl inlay. He later took up architecture under Sinan and became his first assistant. In sixteen oh six he became chief imperial architect. From sixteen oh nine to sixteen sixteen he worked only on this mosque.

The central dome is a main sight in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Mosque design repeats that of the Sehzade Mosque, an earlier work by Sinan. The Sehzade dome is nineteen metres wide and thirty-seven metres high. The dome of the Blue Mosque stands forty-three metres high.

Four large piers, each about five metres across, carry the dome. Pointed arches rise from them. Four long, smooth pendentives link the piers to the dome. Each pendentive is a curved triangle cut from a sphere. It lets a round dome rest above a square room. Each corner of the hall has a small dome of its own.

The windows that light the building are set in six rows. Columns hold up a gallery of two floors that runs round three sides of the hall. Where the small half-domes meet the walls, the joins are worked in stucco muqarnas. Muqarnas cells stack over one another and ease the step from a square room to a round dome.

Six minarets stand out among the sights in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Mosque minarets follow a layout not tried until then. Four rise at the corners of the hall, and two at the corners of the courtyard. They are built of kufeki stone and end in lead-covered caps.

Tiles from the centres of Iznik and Kutahya cover the walls. The mosque holds twenty-one thousand and forty-three tiles, set in more than fifty compositions. All were made by the underglaze method. The upper gallery holds the finest panels, on its north wall. Cypress trees, flowers and fruit appear in blue, green, red, black and turquoise.

Its tiles belong to day two in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Mosque tiles from Iznik have a fritware body of quartz sand and glass frit. Cobalt blue came first, then turquoise around fifteen twenty and bright red around fifteen sixty. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque was the last major building given Iznik tiles.

Painted designs cover nearly three quarters of the walls above the tilework. The first painted work was covered over in eighteen eighty-three. The inscriptions are credited to the calligrapher Seyyid Kasim Gubari. The mihrab is finely carved marble with a muqarnas niche. The minbar is carved marble as well, and a gold-covered cone crowns it.

Istanbul also features in 6 Day Turkey Bus Tour From Istanbul.

Around the mosque stands a complex, or kulliye. The first buildings were a sultan’s lodge, a primary school, a madrasa, an arasta market and a bath. The two-storey lodge in the south-east corner was a first for Ottoman building. The arasta once held about two hundred shops, and it was restored between nineteen eighty-two and nineteen eighty-five.

Day two covers Sultanahmet in a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Mosque ground borders the old Hippodrome. The mosque gave the quarter its name. The tomb of Ahmed I, north of the madrasa, holds thirty-six sarcophagi. UNESCO added the Historic Areas of Istanbul to its list in nineteen eighty-five.

In what order do the courtyards of Topkapi Palace follow one another, as mapped near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Topkapi Palace has four courtyards, mapped near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Courtyards one to three are joined by two gates, named Salutation and Felicity. A covered path leads on to the fourth.

Topkapi Palace stands on Seraglio Point, a promontory that separates the Sea of Marmara from the Golden Horn. The acropolis of ancient Byzantium once stood on the same ground. This route reaches the palace on day two. Its plan is read near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Courtyards follow one another inside the walls.

High walls enclosed the whole complex, and parts of them date back to the Byzantine acropolis. On the land side, the wall called Sur-i Sultani is fourteen hundred metres long. Gulhane Park, the old imperial flower park, bordered the grounds to the west and south. The main outer gate, Bab-i Humayun, opens towards Ayasofya Square.

The Imperial Gate opens through a central arch into a high-domed passage. The tughras of Mehmed II and Abdulaziz have been identified on the gate. Behind it lies the first courtyard, the largest of the four. Its outline is drawn near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Courtyards two to four lie beyond.

The Gate of Salutation, also called the Middle Gate, leads into the second courtyard. Two large octagonal towers with pointed tops stand at its crenellated front. Their style shows Byzantine influence, and the date of the gate is uncertain. An inscription at the door places the gate no later than fifteen forty-two.

Inside the second courtyard, the kitchens with their domes and chimneys stand on the right. Kubbealti and the Inner Treasury are the main buildings on the left side. This court is laid out near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Courtyards two and three meet at the Gate of Felicity.

Kubbealti is the domed chamber of the Imperial Council building, and its name means under the dome. Behind it rises the Tower of Justice, one of the symbols of the palace. The tower is the tallest structure in the palace. A window with a golden grill let a listener follow the council unnoticed.

The Gate of Felicity opens onto the third courtyard, called the Enderun. A dome on lean marble pillars covers the gate. Its ceiling is partly painted and gilded, with a golden ball hanging from the middle. The gate is drawn near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Courtyards here served as the sultans’ home.

For more on Istanbul, see 9 Day Cheap Turkey Bus Tour From Istanbul.

The Audience Chamber stands behind the gate and is a square Ottoman kiosk. A colonnade of twenty-two columns carries its large roof. The Library of Ahmed III stands behind the chamber and has the plan of a Greek cross. A porch forms the fourth arm, with stairs on both sides, and a low basement protects the books from damp.

The plan of the third courtyard goes back to Mehmed II. Quarters of the Agas, who served at court, surround it. The Mosque of the Agas is the largest mosque in the palace. Sinan built the Privy Chamber under Murad III. Iznik tiles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries decorate the library walls above its windows.

A covered path runs from both sides of the Treasury Room into the fourth courtyard. That link is charted near a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Courtyards three and four are joined by it. The Big Pool lies in the first section of the fourth courtyard, with the Revan Kiosk next to it.

• The Revan Kiosk is a small pavilion with a central dome and three apses.
• Its blue-and-white Iznik tiles copy patterns from a century earlier.
• The Baghdad Kiosk resembles it closely, and its wall tiles copy those of the Circumcision Room.
• The Iftar Kiosk has a ridged cradle vault with a gilded roof, a first in Ottoman architecture.
• The Terrace Kiosk is the only wooden building in the innermost part of the palace.

Which chapels stand in the Rose Valley, as listed beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Ayvali, Kolonlu and Three Crosses are chapels of the Rose Valley. They are listed beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Chapels in the valley date from the ninth to the eleventh century.

Day four of this route lists the Rose Valley, called Gulludere in Turkish. The valley lies in the Cavusin area of Avanos district, in Nevsehir Province. Its churches are set down beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Chapels here are cut into cones of soft volcanic rock.

The rock began as ash thrown out by volcanoes millions of years ago. That ash hardened into tuff, and solid lava later capped it. Parts of the rugged ground are basalt, and parts are thick beds of tuff. Plateaus were cut along cooling cracks into fairy chimneys, and their caps shield them from erosion.

A study of the regional ignimbrites counts about eighty cubic kilometres of rock. A pink Zelve unit averages about sixty metres thick. That colour is noted beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Chapels across Cappadocia were carved out of soft volcanic deposits.

Two techniques were used for church painting in the region. One is painting straight onto the rock surface, and the other is the fresco-secco, or tempera, method. Goreme has the largest number of painted churches in Cappadocia. Its simpler cave churches date from the sixth and seventh centuries, and others from the tenth and eleventh.

The Three Crosses chapel stands at the start of Gulludere valley. Three crosses carved on the ceiling gave it the name. It dates from the end of the ninth century into the tenth. That date is recorded beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Chapels in the valley carry cross motifs in carved relief.

Its plan is a rectangle laid north to south, with a flat-ceilinged nave and an apse toward the north. A Latin cross sits in the middle of the ceiling, flanked by cross reliefs in medallions and two palm reliefs. Patterned wooden cassette ceilings inspired the design. Three large blind arcades are carved between the walls.

The Hacli church, called the Cross church, is carved into a naturally isolated cone. The cone stands among rocks at the start of the neighbouring Kizilcukur valley. The church is described beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Chapels cut in tuff face erosion, and cracks mark this one.

More about Istanbul: 7 Day Turkey Bus Tour From Istanbul.

• A large Latin cross, ringed by palm motifs, on the ceiling gave the church its name.
• Frescoes painted after the iconoclast years show Christ enthroned, with the twelve apostles and John the Baptist.

The Kolonlu chapel, the Columned church, stands at the end of the Gulludere valley and dates from the eleventh century. Its plan is a closed Greek cross with four free-standing supports. The supports are cylindrical columns on square bases, and their capitals are cross-shaped, with ring-shaped lower parts. Cross motifs in relief decorate the capitals.

The church has three apses, and the main one has a round triumphal arch and a half-dome. That apse holds a cathedra for the priest and a seating bench. A staircase on the south front leads up from the bedrock, and three dovecotes and niches sit above the entrance.

The Ayvali church lies on the east side of the Gulludere valley. It is named beside a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Chapels of the valley include this one, cut into a cone-shaped rock mass. Its plan is nearly square, with two naves and two apses.

An inscription dates the church to the reign of Constantine VII. It falls between nine hundred and thirteen and nine hundred and twenty. The inscription is a single line of white paint on the second layer of wall painting. The paintings hold two Old Testament scenes, twenty-four from the second part of the Bible and three symbolic ones.

What stands in the village of Cavusin, as recorded past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Village houses once climbed a rock ridge at Cavusin, where two churches carry the name of St John the Baptist. The record of day four looks past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Village paintings in one church date to the tenth century.

Cavusin is a village in Avanos District, in Nevsehir Province, beside the road that joins Avanos with Goreme. This route lists it on day four. Its story reaches back past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Village houses of the older part stand on and around one large rock ridge.

Villagers began a move to the main road in the early nineteen sixties, amid fears of collapse. One reading names the village Kodessane in the early Christian era. A study cited at Goreme counts Cavusin among the places with rock-cut churches. Others on that list include Zelve, Avcilar, Uchisar and Ortahisar.

Tuff is the stone that volcanic ash becomes when it sets, and it stays relatively soft. Mount Erciyes, Mount Hasan and Gollu Dag are named as the sources of the ancient eruptions. That ground lies far back past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Village rooms and churches were carved from the soft rock.

Wind and water then shaped the soft layers into fairy chimneys. A fairy chimney forms where a hard cap sits over soft rock, and the cap shields the column beneath. Cracks open, and the softer rock under the cap erodes. The Turkish name for these tent rocks is peribacasi, and the ones near Cavusin are an example.

The village holds two rock-cut churches that share one dedication, to St John the Baptist. The first stands beside the road that links Goreme with Avanos. It is carved into a large mass of rock, on two levels. Its single nave has a barrel vault, a roof with the shape of half a cylinder.

See also West Turkey Tour Package.

Its lower level holds monks’ rooms, and the church rises above. The natural stair up to the church has collapsed. The carved rooms go back past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Village rooms like these belong to rock-cut architecture, where interiors are cut from the roof downward.

An apse is a half-round recess at the east end of a church, covered by a half-dome. This church has three of them. The narthex, a high entrance porch, has collapsed. The narthex holds images of archangels. Frescoes cover the inner walls of the church, and parts of the paint remain in very good condition.

The west wall shows the Nativity, and the apse shows the Transfiguration. Portraits of Emperor Nikephoros Phokas and his wife Theophano appear among the frescoes. Those portraits date far back past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Village roots tie Nikephoros to Cappadocia, where his mother’s family, the Maleinoi, had settled.

The first church goes by other names, among them Nikeforos Fokas and Buyuk Guvercinlik. Guvercinlik is the Turkish word for a dovecote. Dovecotes in Cappadocia are designed like rooms cut into the rock. Entrances tend to face east or south, to shield the cotes from cold and let in sunlight. The oldest examples date to the eighteenth century.

The second church, in the old part, is a huge basilica of the early sixth century. Soot has blackened it, but carving draws the eye. Its age puts it far back past a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Village studies offer one reading: a cross-shaped hole in the apse floor held relics of St Hieron.

Goreme National Park covers nearly a hundred square kilometres in Nevsehir Province, near Urgup and Cavusin. UNESCO listed it in nineteen eighty-five. Its underground churches held coloured paintings by the year eight hundred and forty-two. Cave churches across Cappadocia hold frescoes from the ninth to the eleventh century. Cavusin’s tenth-century portraits sit inside that span.

How is the castle of Ortahisar cut from the rock, as explained along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Carvers hollowed a tall volcanic rock into passages, rooms, caves and dovecotes. Ortahisar is a stop along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Castle rock is made of harder volcanic layers, later adapted into a rock-cut castle.

Ortahisar is listed along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Castle and town share a name that means middle fortress. The town belongs to Urgup District in Nevsehir Province, at twelve hundred metres above sea level. This route reaches the rock on day four.

Ancient eruptions of Erciyes, Hasan and Gollu Dag spread thick volcanic deposits across Cappadocia. Wind and water then eroded those deposits over millions of years. Layers of harder volcanic rock wore away more slowly, so Ortahisar and Uchisar were left standing. People later cut castles and settlements into these raised masses.

Tuff is volcanic ash hardened into stone, and ignimbrite is a welded kind of tuff. Geologists mapped nine Miocene ignimbrites in the Cappadocian sequence, over four hundred and thirty metres thick. That sequence is outlined along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Castle stone is ash that zeolites, clays and calcite have cemented together.

Another page that includes Istanbul is 9 Day Highlights of Turkey Tour From Istanbul.

Soft tuff is comparatively easy to work, so people were probably cutting dugouts in it by the early Bronze Age. Builders in other lands have cut tuff into blocks since ancient times. Rock dwellings stayed in use for the pleasant temperatures under the rock. On the island of Ventotene a whole harbour was carved from tuff.

Inside, the rock holds an intricate network of caves, dovecotes and winding tunnels. Dovecotes in the region were carved into high cliff walls. That carved work is traced along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Castle rocks of this kind have had parts opened to the air by erosion and earthquake damage.

A tangle of passages and rooms runs through castle rocks such as Ortahisar. Door-stones, like those in the underground cities, closed such a rock. A castle rock of this kind had space for about a thousand people. Certain caves in Uchisar, Ortahisar and the Soganli valley remain in use.

Sources give different heights, but all agree the rock stands above fifty metres. A ministry portal says the rock is thought to have been carved in Hittite times. That claim is retold along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Castle history here is that of an old settlement, as the ministry portal calls it.

Byzantine times are linked with the rock as a place of refuge. Cappadocia counts three main castles: Uchisar, Ortahisar and the Urgup hill called Temenni. Uchisar and Ortahisar both appear on this route, on days three and four. Urgup lies near this route and is the seat of the district that holds Ortahisar.

The town is a centre for fruit storage. Carved stores in the valleys kept apples, potatoes, oranges and lemons from the Mediterranean. Tuff caves stay at ten degrees Celsius in summer and winter. These stores are explained along a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Castle caves hold produce for up to nine months.

Old stone houses cluster round the foot of the rock and rise one or two storeys. Their upper floors are laid in blocks of tuff, mostly without mortar. A flight of tuff slabs climbs the outer wall. Later buildings use the same stone in even blocks, with white limestone and simple cornices.

• Hallac Monastery lies northeast of the town, around a courtyard with walls on three sides and an open southern side.
• Rubble has raised the ground there by one and a half metres since the builders finished.
• The entrances to the monastic rooms lie lower than the courtyard.
• When the rooms fell out of use, locals built walls across the entrances and kept pigeons inside.
• Pigeon droppings were collected as fertiliser, and painted entrance holes drew the birds.

What did the potters of Avanos make from the clay of the Kizilirmak, as told at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Avanos potters shaped jugs, churns, wine jars, pickle jars and casseroles from red Kizilirmak silt. Their craft is told at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Pottery there probably dates back to Hittite times.

This route lists Avanos with its pottery on day three. Its clay story is told at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Pottery rests on the river here. The town stands on the Kizilirmak, the Red River, known in antiquity as the Halys. The craft is its chief industry.

The Kizilirmak runs for thirteen hundred and fifty-five kilometres, the longest river that stays wholly inside Turkey. It rises in Eastern Anatolia, flows west and south-west, then bends in a wide arch past Lake Tuz. The Hittite core lands lay inside that bend. The Hittites called the river the Marassantiya. It ends in the Black Sea north-west of Samsun.

7 Day Turkey Tour by Flight From Istanbul covers Istanbul too.

The red clay is explained at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Pottery clay from Avanos holds illite, quartz, feldspar, calcite, dolomite and hematite. Hematite makes it red, and its share moves the shade between light yellow, light red and dark red.

The earth comes from two places. Part is silt left in the old bed of the Kizilirmak. The rest is taken from hills between five hundred metres and six kilometres from the district. Long-used sources include Gedik, Burabayir, Cinderesi and Kiziloz. A study places a red clay gallery of the Neogene period in the north-west.

Finds reach the Bronze Age, as traced at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Pottery sherds from Zank Hoyuk, near Sarilar, show how old the craft is. Twenty-four building levels at Topakli Hoyuk, from the Bronze Age to the Byzantine period, held ceramic pieces. The first pots were coiled by hand.

A workshop is called an islik. Different earths are blended in chosen ratios, crushed with a hammer and sieved. The mud is mixed by hand with water, about a tenth of its amount. It rests for a day, or it cracks. It must be shaped within a day, or it hardens.

The wheel sets Avanos apart, as seen at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Pottery wheels elsewhere in Anatolia tend to be long-spindle foot wheels, set to the potter’s right or left. In Avanos the shaft is short, with a ball bearing, and the wheel sits between the potter’s legs.

Locals call the wheel a cikrik. A cylinder of two or three terracotta parts sets its height, and the top tray can change size. Three kinds of mould sit on it: base, flat and ulak, which has no base. The potter keeps a small bucket and a piece of felt to wet the clay.

Finishing and firing come last, as listed at a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Pottery is painted before it dries, which is zirhlama, and polished when leather-hard, which is perdahlama. Traditional ware is unglazed terracotta, with decoration by scraping and relief. The common kiln burns wood, sawdust and straw.

The old trade was in rough goods for everyday use. Workshops made vessels to store farm and animal produce such as wine, molasses, vinegar, cheese, milk and yoghurt. Each traditional form was fully practical and took a local name of its own. The local forms include these:

• The gebece, which stored grape must
• A storage form for winemaking, water and pickles, with pitch on its inner walls
• Casseroles for cooking
• Hand jugs for carrying liquid
• Water containers with handles, or pitchers
• Churns

Donkeys carried the pots in sacks to nearby markets, and caravans took pots, bowls and rugs as far as Adana. Buyers mostly paid by barter. Tourism changed the craft from the nineteen seventies. Fine goods such as miniature jugs, vases and a Hittite sun jug joined the rough ones.

Istanbul comes up again in 5 Day Istanbul Tour Package.

Which tomb types line the necropolis of Hierapolis, as charted with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Plain graves, sarcophagi, round tumuli and family tombs shaped like small temples line the necropolis of Hierapolis, making four types. They are listed with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Tombs there number about twelve hundred.

The burial field lies beyond the city walls, ranged along the northern, southern and eastern sides of old Hierapolis. The culture ministry calls it the largest necropolis in south-west Anatolia. For over two kilometres, graves flank the road that led out to Phrygian Tripolis and Sardis. Its state of preservation is among the highest in Turkey.

Simple graves are the first type on the list, made for common people. Poor families had their tombs carved into the rock, and these are plain. Rich families had larger tombs. That split by wealth is easy to read with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Tombs cut into the rock are simple in form.

The second type is the sarcophagus, a word built from Greek roots for flesh and to eat. At Hierapolis a sarcophagus either stands on a raised base or is hollowed from the rock. Reliefs and epitaphs on these chests name the dead and state their professions. Robbers have emptied the greater part of them.

Earth and stones piled over one or more graves form a tumulus. The round tumuli of Hierapolis can be hard to make out. That type is listed with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Tombs of this kind hold a vaulted room, reached by a narrow passage.

Larger family graves are the fourth type. Sometimes they are monumental and resemble small temples. Their purpose matches that of a heroon, a shrine to a hero built at times over a tomb. The oldest graves of the northern field belong to the Hellenistic period, in the first and second centuries BC.

Local limestone is the main material of the tombs, and marble is added. Travertine lahids in the northern field carry Greek inscriptions with soros as a suffix. They are noted with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Tombs of that stone are made from rock that hot spring water deposited.

The southern field shows later work. Marble lahids of the Byzantine period rest on stone bases. Their roofs are cob brick covered with tiles, and the inside of one grave carries coloured wall paintings. A large travertine area there lies broken, and the sources tie the damage to an earthquake.

The grave of Tiberius Claudius Talamos lies on the road toward Laodicea and Colossae. Its facade resembles a home, and the sources note that it draws the eye. In the southern field, Denizli Museum experts came upon a grave bearing long inscriptions. Marble blocks carrying Early Hellenistic inscriptions came to light there as well.

The sarcophagus of Marcus Aurelius Ammianos, a local miller, carries a raised relief of a machine. In the scene, a mill race drives a waterwheel. Through gears, the wheel works two frame saws that cut rectangular blocks. The Greek inscription credits the owner’s skill with wheels. The carving belongs to the third century AD, after its midpoint.

The relief is the earliest known machine to join a crank to a connecting rod. Together with two sixth-century sawmills, it pushes that invention back by a full millennium. The carving is listed with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Tombs here name trades in their epitaphs, and this one shows the miller’s machine.

A related page on Istanbul: 8 Day Istanbul Cappadocia Ephesus Pamukkale Tour.

Norwegian scholars studied the north-east field from two thousand and seven to two thousand and fifteen. They recorded every visible grave and sarcophagus. Name inscriptions suggest that a contractor built chains of two to five tombs. That record is read with a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Tombs and sarcophagi there were reused across periods.

How did Harbour Street run at Ephesus, as traced for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Colonnade rows lined Harbour Street, a road of about five hundred metres from the theatre to the harbour. Its plan is traced for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Colonnade porticoes housed shops and businesses on both sides.

Day six of this route names Ephesus. ICOMOS, an advisory body of UNESCO, describes the Arkadiane as a colonnaded street from the theatre to the harbour. The road is traced for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Colonnade and restoration go together there, since Arcadius restored it at the end of the fourth century.

The ministry brochure dates the first road to the late Hellenistic age and gives its length as five hundred metres. The road is listed for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Colonnade and ceremony shared the road, since processions used it at times.

Two palaestrae, or exercise yards, belong to a large bath complex beside the street, ICOMOS notes. The ministry brochure lists a harbour gymnasium with two palaestrae as well. That layout is mapped for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Colonnade, baths and palaestrae share one stretch of the plan.

The Ephesus article says Arcadius raised the level of the street that links theatre and harbour. A second ministry page says kings were greeted on it and religious ceremonies took place. The street is described for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Colonnade, theatre and harbour all appear in the sources for this road.

One scholarly page calls the road an impressive entrance, joining the port with the theatre. The lower city, with its market, theatre and stadium, lay in the harbour area. This plan is read for a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Colonnade shops and harbour warehouses both appear in ministry texts.

Because the road links the Royal Road with the seashore, the brochure names it Harbour Street. A conference summary by researchers names two harbours at Ephesus, the Koressos harbour and the Roman harbour. Both were hubs for commerce with the islands of the Aegean Sea. Harbour remains show the port shifting from east to west as silt built up.

An aerial view shows the Roman harbour basin and its canal, which standing groundwater and green plants mark all year. UNESCO’s advisers list the harbour and the channel leading from the city among the attributes of Ephesus. A canal kept the harbour joined to the open sea as the delta advanced, and necropolises lined its two sides.

Dredging of the basin is mentioned five times between the first and third centuries AD. At the start of the second century a high priest paid to rebuild and enlarge the harbour area. Around the middle of that century the proconsul banned dumping of waste, debris and rubble in the basin. The rule aimed to keep the harbour clean.

Readers interested in Istanbul can open 9 Day Turkey Holy Lands Tour From Istanbul.

Corundum, a hard mineral, occurs in the harbour basin muds. It is absent from the muds of Lake Belevi, a lake north-east of Ephesus. Corundum served as an abrasive for working marble. Marble particles also occur in the basin muds. A governor under Antoninus Pius banned dumping marble powder and emery in the harbour.

The Roman basin mud works as an archive of harbour life. Lead and copper rise from the first century BC and fall after the sixth or seventh century AD. Resins and essential oils show high values from the first century BC to the early seventh century AD. Pollen of thorny burnet shows the plant served as packing material in shipping.

ICOMOS judges Ephesus an outstanding case of a Roman harbour city. It names a sea channel and a harbour basin along the Kaystros River. Earlier and later harbours show how the river landscape changed. As the city declined after the seventh century AD, pine pollen rises in the mud, a sign of fallow land.

How is the dome of Hagia Sophia held up, as outlined on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul?

Piers hold the dome up, as seen on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Dome weight in Hagia Sophia passes through pendentives and four arches to those piers, and half-domes brace the sides.

Day two of this route names Hagia Sophia. Its dome rests above a plan with straight sides. Pendentives, spherical triangles, link the four corner piers to the round rim. Their shape is drawn on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Dome load gathers at the four corners, where the piers carry it.

Justinian gave the work to two scientists, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus. Neither had been schooled in architecture. Both were able to manage large work forces and supplies. The sources say stone came from as far as Egypt, Syria and Libya. Over ten thousand workers laboured on the site.

Isidore is linked to vaults, as noted on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Dome work is believed to be in large part his. He wrote a commentary on an older treatise on vaulting. A later writer credits him with a special compass for drawing parabolas.

Anthemius was a mathematician. He used the focus and directrix to find points on a parabola. His book on burning mirrors treated surfaces that send light to one point. A fragment of his Greek work on mechanical paradoxes survives. Anthemius died early in the building work.

Procopius, a writer of the sixth century, describes four great piers in the middle of the church. Two stand north and two south. The stones were big and carefully chosen. Masons fitted them together, as told on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Dome and arches stand on those four piers in his account.

Four arches rise from the piers and form a square. Between them the stonework takes the form of four triangles, Procopius writes. Each narrows to a point below and widens upward to meet a circle. The dome rests on that circle. Earlier builders had used squinches or corbelling in the corners of a room.

For a similar plan, see 12 Day Turkey Tour.

A ring of forty windows sits at the base of the dome. Forty ribs spring up from the spaces between them. Ribs leave room for windows, as shown on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Dome studies expect the greatest hoop tension at that level, and the openings also cut weight.

No other dome of that width sits so low. The thrust of a dome grows in step with the weight of its materials. The first dome was too flat, and its load fell hard on the piers. Earthquakes cracked it, and part of it fell in the year five hundred and fifty-eight.

Isidore the Younger, a nephew of the first Isidore, rebuilt the vault. He raised it by about six metres. Lighter materials were used, as recorded on a 7 day west Turkey tour by public bus from Istanbul. Dome ribs, forty in all, replaced the plain shell. The writer Agathias judged it less awesome but far more secure.

Half-domes of the same width flank the dome to east and west. They are carried on smaller semi-domed exedrae, and the conches of those exedrae brace them. While the work went on, the piers of the eastern arch began to break away. The arch was completed so that it carried its own weight.

Iron cramps in the marble cornice cut outward thrust. Wooden tension chains once ran at the window base, and iron chains followed. Four buttresses were ordered for the eastern and northern parts in the early fourteenth century. The architect Sinan added outer supports. In the nineteenth century the Fossati brothers bound the dome with an iron chain.