One of the greatest cities of Antiquity

Yet again the turn for another of the great ancient cities in the world. Pergamon. Of Greek origin, then Roman as it’s the case for this entire region of Turkey, was of great strategical, knowledge and arts importance. With the steepest theater from the ancient times and once home to the 2nd largest library from the ancient world just after Alexandria, it flourished even further after the Pergamese people discovered a new way of creating paper-like since the administration of papyrus was cut off from Egypt. They named this newly created product pergamenum after the name of the city. This event was a complete success across the entire Roman empire as it meant breaking the dependency from Egypt’s papyrus.

But visiting this place did not come as a simple task on our agenda. Squeezing the time to probably a new limit that we have not done before, while changing upside down the original plans for this entire long weekend trip; we managed to get some room to visit this great ancient city. At only 100 kilometers to the north from Izmir, it was in our heads the days before flying to Turkey yet we preferred to stop thinking and letting it go with the flow. Still… the rush for doing everything possible to get to this place was too high to miss.

As commented on the previous travel guides for Izmir (Smyrna) and Ephesus, Pergamon is also one of the Seven Churches of Asia, known also as the Seven Churches of Revelation or the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse. Mentioned in the New Testament Book of Revelation, it is where Jesus Christ from the Greek island of Patmos instructs his servant Jon of Patmost saying: “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”