Rhodes: a library, a castle, a church, a mosque, and the view

  I am hoping to post pictures from each of the places we visited on our trip, but it ought to be clear that we saw about 5 different locations for a couple hours over the course of 3 days. So, these pictures are by no means systematic. Mostly I just think people may enjoy having a picture of sites that they could read about in the Bible. The island of Rhodes is mentioned in Acts 21:1 where it is a brief stop on Paul's return to Syria after which he went to Jerusalem.

Church of the Virgin of the Burgh (14th century) - It has a weird history including having a road run through it. 

I find this style of mosque fascinating, but I've never actually been inside one. This one didn't have a public entrance that I could find; it may be closed.  

a Library founded by an Ottoman official a couple hundred years ago. Below are more details.

On the left, is the founding document for the Hafiz Ahmed Ağa Library. Surrounding it are translations into various languages. On the right, is a bit more history of the man and his times. 

I wish I could read the Ottoman (Arabic) script... maybe someday! The language is just an older version of Turkish, so the major hinderance is the orthography, as well as the changes that have occurred in Turkish vocabulary.

Library books, old and new

The view from the Clock Tower: notice the modern city beyond the old city walls

180-degree view from the clock tower

View of the castle from the tower 

 Apparently this is technically known at "The Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes." Impressive, but I only saw the outside. 

Patmos - the island

  Shortly after we got married, Bethany told me that we needed to start saving so that we could "do something special" for our 10th anniversary.  Since we were barely making ends meet at the time, this seemed like an odd thing to save money for, to me.  However, she was certainly right, and we started it with a few dollars. Last week, a decade of saving came together, and we got to go on a cruise in the (nearby) Greek islands! We flew to Izmir and got on the ship, and a few hours later, we were at our first stop, the island of Patmos. 

The harbor at Patmos

  My recollection of how Patmos is described in biblical commentaries on the book of Revelation is "a small rocky island"... not that I could give a specific reference for that. That description is not particularly wrong, although the island is quite a bit bigger than I envisioned. It's small for an island, but it's not particularly small.

Harbor picture 2

  There was a tour that showed various historical (or supposedly historical?) sites on the island, but we preferred to just walk around the town and observe it from various perspectives. We also enjoyed some excellent ice cream there and bought some pistachio-chocolate sauce (imagine dark chocolate Nutella, made with pistachios!)

The town on Patmos

Sunset over Patmos harbor

the sun disappearing

The Museum that Shocked Me

The first time I visited Turkey, my host dropped me off at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. I love history, and I was shocked to discover empires that I had never heard of. I've always wanted to go back with a little more knowledge. This summer I got to go with my family (using the high-speed train)... I got to expose the kids to empires that had come and gone before the time of Abraham. Amazing! Below is a slightly blurred picture of one of my daughters observing a replica of an ancient Hittite monument depicting their gods and lions. I hope her world expanded!

13th Century Hittite monumental steele (replica; original in Konya province)

Artifacts believed to be from the 6th millenium BC

Stone knives can sound relatively harmless till you see them!
dated 6th millenia BC

Seals or stamps from the same timeframe

Check out the block of obsidian for chipping knives off of! 

 

a Hittite "holy cow"

 Remember King Josiah?

A steele from Carchemish, dated 900-700BC.
See the inscription below.

There is a ton more to see, but these were some of my favorites from a few sample empires.