South from Ephesus by Brian Sewell

Author:Brian Sewell [Sewell, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, Turkey & Ottoman Empire, Travel, Turkey, Art, Middle Eastern, Medieval, Ancient & Classical, Essays & Travelogues
ISBN: 9780857731449
Google: 19OLDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-04-19T01:44:06+00:00

IX

Tlos * Kaş

Tlos is reached from Kemer on the road between Fethiye and Xanthus, nine miles or so to the south, and not from the main road along the Xanthus valley. It is signposted in the town, but not once nearer the site; driving south the road eventually forks, and at that point you must return some two hundred yards to a white house on its west side, and take a narrow road on its east side almost opposite. Kemer on a wet January day resembled Piccadilly Circus in the volume and confusion of its traffic; from this hub we could look down the road to Tlos to see that for some hundreds of yards it was axle-deep in mud, wide enough for only one stream of traffic, and occupied by oncoming cars slithering from side to side; Ayhan, instead of waiting out of the way until there was a chance to go forward, stopped the car where it seemed to obstruct all paths, rested his head on the steering-wheel, and refused to budge. He was, I think, having a mild attack of hysteria – I could not follow his argument, though I recognized danger in the rising pitch of his voice, and he would not follow mine that if cars were able to come into town, then cars must be able to leave it – the dispute ended with his getting out of the car and walking away into the rain and out of sight. Petter moved the car, and we sat, wondering what to do, more puzzled than angry. When Ayhan returned he said that we must drive to Xanthus and forget about Tlos; we had argued the point earlier – Xanthus I knew well and did not need to visit again, but Ayhan had never heard of Tlos, could not find it in his guides’ Bible, Ekrem Akurgal’s Ancient… Ruins of Turkey, and rather like art historians who cannot find artists in the forty-three volumes of the Lexikon compiled by Thieme and Becker, declared that it did not exist, that I had confused it with Teos (which is in Akurgal), and that his instructions were to take me to Xanthus. Such a use of ‘instructions’ is calculated to make me obstinate beyond measure.

We stopped at the white house to ask the way, and its owner came with us to be sure; the road climbed rapidly through country that might be the wilder uplands of Derbyshire, and then suddenly, ahead and to the right, the acropolis appeared, a great bluff covered with temple tombs, a sight of such beauty that even Ayhan gasped. We dashed through the pouring rain into the dark tea-house to sort out ourselves and the cameras; it was crowded with young men who shuffled chairs away from the stove, but it was not until my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom that I saw them – at first I could see only the whites of eyes and the glint of teeth. They seemed hostile,

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