Biblical Pergamum Full Day

You will be met with your private guide on your pick up point and start your Pergamon tour. It is a 1.30 hour drive from Izmir to Pergamon. It takes 3 hours’ drive from Kusadasi. Pergamon had a significant place of its own in all Asia. Historically the city was the capital of the greatest Kingdom that existed in this region. The city is situated at 100 km north of Izmir. The Roman historian Pliny Called it: “By far the most famous city in all Asia”. The cause for this importance was this: When John wrote his Letter, Pergamon had been a capital city for almost four hundred years. After the mythical times, Pergamum Had been the scene of several cultures, ranging from those of the Stone and Bronze Ages until the Archaic and Classical Periods. Among the temples, palaces and agora’s, the Asclepion, which were constructed in the course of one century, belonged the big Zeus Altar and the Parchment Library. They stand as the most brilliant works of Art of the fourth and third century B.C. in Anatolia. The Parchment Library housed the most famous collection of Books of that time, written on a type of processed lamb and goat skins. This was a process invented in Pergamum, when the rulers of Ptolemean Egypt embargoed the export of Egyptian papyrus sheets to Pergamum. Other magnificent buildings of this period are the Temple of Athena and those of Demeter and Dyonisos. After The Lunch We will continue to Asclepion. Asclepion was known under the name of “The Pergamum God of Health”. In ancient times there were in this Part of the world three favourite religious shrines and holy places. They were: the Artemisia of Ephesus, the Apollo cult of Delphi and that of Asclepius Pergamum. Asclepius the deity health and medicine served the people For several hundred years; thus making Pergamum a medical centre of very great importance. Famous medical Scholars, like Hippocrates and Galenus, were born in Pergamum and worked there. Your last visit will be to Red Basilica (Kizil Avlu). Today, the still-enormous Red Basilica straddles the Selinus River (Bergama Cayi), whose two subterranean galleries provide a canal for the water to pass. The interior of the basilica consisted of three aisles divided by two rows of columns. The central aisle ended in a semi-circular apse, under which was a crypt. Above the lateral aisles were galleries. A small mosque now makes its home in one of the towers. Afterwards you drive back to your drop off point.