EPHESUS OF CATS
Ephesus is located on the western coast of Turkey, Izmir. The ancient ruins are 2-3 km distance from the town of Selçuk.
The city is on the World Heritage List
It was very important town already for around 7.000 years. Many emperors, kings, queens laid claim to this place. It was the start point of the Royal Road. Even today, we are able to see the footprints of the very ancient civilizations such as Ionians, Greeks, Romans, Seljuks, Byzantine and the Ottomans. For many, they are the cats of Ephesus, but for me, it is Ephesus of the cats.
Each time you are in this place, it makes you say: ''How I wish to have lived in this place''. Yes, it is visible on the faces of the tourists from all over the world who come to visit this magical site. But we can only spend a few hours at most in this place. However there are some, who have lived here for thousands and thousands of years: CATS.
They are the real owners and the residents of Ephesus. Not the Alexander the Great who has been to here, not Julius Caesar, not Cleopatra and Marcus Antonius who made their war plans agains Augustus here, not Heraclitus, Xenenophon, not Apostle Paul. They have all been here, but the cats, royal, intelligent, august and supreme rulers of Ephesus. The real owners of the city.
It is already a known fact that the cats have a huge place in the daily life of the Turkish people. Especially in touristical places, you can see them as the landlords, welcoming and well hosting their guests from all over the world:
Indeed, a popular saying in Turkey notes ''if you kill a cat, you need to build a mosque to be forgiven by God''.
There is another Islamic saying of a cat, killing a poisonous snake that had approached the Prophet Muhammed. Recently we hear the news of an Imam in Turkey who opened the doors of his mosque to the cats who were cold outside in winter.
I was already aware of the famous cats of Ephesus. Sabine Ladstatter, who was leading the Ephesus dig, wrote a book about the Cats of Ephesus. She worked together with Lois Lammerhuber and presented the world of antiquity from a very special angle.
Since the cats are and have been the only permanent residents of Ephesus, I would like to look change the words a little and say the Ephesus of the Cats.
The emperors, queens, sultans thought that these were the sultan's cats, but they were wrong, the cats themselves were always the emperors, queens and the sultans. They are all gone, but the cats remain today.
The Ephesus of the Cats
The Ruins are watched over by many cats who are confident, they are the most beautiful things to explore in this ancient settlement
They challenge the humanity by their beauty and show us that they are more beautiful than anything human hands could create, including this mystical Ephesus.
