Milet @ Travel Turkey

Birth of reason in Turkey's Aegean region
The columns at Miletus, Ephesus, Assos speak to us of those who lived among them and pointed the way to pursue our knowledge of who we are.

On my first visit to Turkey in 1969 I rushed to pay my respects at Miletus and Ephesus, where the world's first great rational thinkers lived. I was two-and-a-half millennia late to meet Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes or Heraclitus, but their words had come down to me and set my life on a course of studying and teaching philosophy. October 3, 2010 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=birth-of-reason-in-turkey...

Miletus is south of Söke (Soka). The ruin lies 5 km north of Akköy. It is believed that Paul stopped by Great Harbour Monument and sat on its steps, on his way back to Jerusalem by boat. He may have met the Ephesian Elders there and then bid them farewell on the nearby beach, which was recorded in the book of Acts.

Important Pre-Socratic philosophers are said to originate from Miletus. These include Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. The noted historian Hecataeus of Miletus was native to the city, and was heavily involved during the Persian occupation of Anatolia.

The first excavations in Miletus were conducted by the French archaeologist Olivier Rayet in 1873, followed by the German archaeologist Theodor Wiegand. But these were interrupted several times by wars and various other events. Today, excavations are organized by the Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany.

One remarkable artifact recovered from the city during the first excavations of the 19th century, the Market Gate of Miletus, was transported piece by piece to Germany and currently exhibited at the Pergamon museum in Berlin. The main collection of artifacts resides in the Miletus Museum in Didim, Aydın, serving since 1973.

Homer records that during the time of the Trojan War, it was a Carian city (Iliad, book II). Other Greek myths relate that the city was founded by a hero named Miletus, who fled Crete to avoid being forced to become the eromenos of King Minos (according to Antoninus Liberalis, after Nicander (Metamorphoses XXX 1-2)). These myths further relate that the hero Miletus found the city only after slaying a giant named Asterius, son of Anax; and that the region known as Miletus was originally called 'Anactoria'.