Perge – ruins with a lot of columns

Friday, 20 June 2014

Just 17 km north-west of Antalya and a stone’s throw off the freeway this is the most developed of the three archaeological sites close to the Mediterranean resort. It was also the last stop in my Global Heritage Fund circuit of Turkey’s sites, although there is one more archaeological visit to post: the wonderful Antalya Museum with its big collection of statues, much of it retrieved from Perge.

Along the way I’ve been to Göbekli Tepe, a current GHF site, to Nemrut Dağı, to Gaziantep where the museum features wonderful mosaics from the Roman city of Belkıs-Zeugma, to the former GHF site at Catalhöyük, to the amazing ruins at Sagalassos, to Termessos with its enormous stonework, to Aspendos and finally Perge.

◄ I posed beside these columns in Perge because they looked remarkably like the columns in GHF’s logo!

 

◄ GHF’s logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perge boasts an awful lot of columns, particularly around the Agora and here, along the Colonnaded Street with its central water channel running down from the Nymphaem fountain.  ▼