Pamukkale is a white travertine hill of pools formed by calcium carbonate deposits from the warm mineral spring that flowed from the top, where the spa town of Hierapolis was established in 90 BCE, and was in operation for more than a millennium. It took mere decades for modern humans to nearly ruin it. Much of the travertine is no longer white and only a pitiful amount of warm water trickles through. Nowadays the site hardly resembles its own promo photos.
Some efforts are made to curb further deterioration, though the site seems to have the disillusion of rehabilitation. Everyone had to take off their shoes and walk barefoot. Some areas are roped off. While most of the visitors followed the rules, a few wore shoes, went over barriers. I felt like I was watching a distilled picture of the earth itself. Humans (myself included) keep taking from Mother Nature, even knowing when it is to Her detriment, while some do it with trepidation and regret, others do it with oblivion and excess.
We paid our admission and entered the Pamukkale pools at the bottom.
It's a beautiful setting.
But there are tooooo many tourists.
Up at the top, the ancient Roman spa pool of Hierapolis now caters to tourists.
The archaeological site is fairly spread out. We enjoyed the Roman Theatre (1st below), and were introduced to the Ploutonion (2nd below). Named after Pluto the god of the underworld, and sitting on a seismic fault, it was revered as the Gateway of Hades.
While walking the ruins there was a downpour which we waited out by crawling inside an ancient tomb. ;-)
There is a commanding view of Hierapolis and the white travertine deposits from above the Greek Theatre of which 5 or 6 rows of seats are barely discernible.
Descending from the viewpoint we visited the necropolis (1st below), and the Roman collonaded street (2nd and 3rd below).
And finally a view over the travertine to the Hierapolis Site Museum, formerly Roman Baths.
4 comments:
Wow- very interesting to see the pools.
So sad. I had heard that the site was deteriorating. As far as I remember you had to take your shoes off when I was there in the late 90s, but there were very few tourists. You could soak in the Roman pool then, too.
@Liz, you must not have seen their promo photos, All the pools were overflowing with water.
@Kathy, one could still soak in the Roman pool. It's an additional ticket. Even without shoes, I could see small pieces of travertine that had been broken off. I think their main problem is not having enough water.
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