Thyatira-Philadephia-Sardis

Today we visited the ruins at three of the churches John wrote letters to in The Book of Revelation. There's not much left in Thyatira (Revelation 2:18-29), as the new city was built over the old, as has been done so often throughout history. Even if the old city isn't built directly over the old one, most of the stone, marble, and ceramics from the old city are recycled. As Dr. Sumney said, "Why go to the trouble of mining new marble if there are perfectly good pieces lying around?"

A walkway between two buildings in Thyatira

In Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13), the remains of what was likely a regional church are pretty impressive. Although it's been horribly damaged by earthquakes (a constant danger in the region), it's still quite easy to see that this building had enormous significance in its era, due to both its size, and the number of graves and sarcophagi found at the site (only the very wealthy could afford a sarcophagus). The columns that supported the arched roof are still largely intact. This was a major house of worship, and an impressive feat of architecture and engineering.

The arched roof would have soared above these columns

The archaeological complex at Sardis is jaw-dropping. It's massive, with entire sections of Roman shops, plumbing and sewage systems still intact. Sardis is a testament to Roman engineering and culture, even if that culture was too frequently violent. It would be impossible to argue that the Romans couldn't build cities every bit as technologically advanced for their time as ours are today, especially considering the techniques they invented for sewage and plumbing are largely unchanged.

The gymnasium (school) at Sardis. The scale is difficult to appreciate form the photo. It's massive.

Detail from one of the mosaics at the Synagogue in Sardis.

Even though the weather today was cold, overcast and wet, standing in Sardis, where so much history was made, where through modern day Turkey, civilizations traded goods from China to Rome, was humbling. Humans have accomplished incredible things by cooperating with each other and sharing their resources. It makes me almost unbearably sad to think that, throughout the history of humankind, we've nonetheless always devolved into culture-destroying wars, and continue to do so today, thousands of years after the fall of Rome.