The Wandering Scot

  In the first century BC, King Antiochus of Commagene built a shrine on Mount Nemrut featuring rows of giant enthroned gods.  Including himself, naturally. Sadly, later visitors did not approve. The gods were decapitated and their heads are now arranged in a neat line in front of the thrones. When or why the decapitations […]

I was out at the Göbeklitepe neolithic site in SE Turkey today.  It has a set of monumental structures using stone monoliths, dating from roughly 9500 to 8000 BC.  Yikes.  That’s totally ridiculously old.  It makes Stonehenge look modern.   It probably pre-dates agriculture, which causes archaeologists’ brains to implode. There are an estimated twenty […]

This was my first visit to the Hagia Sophia since it was converted from a  Museum back back into a Mosque in July 2020. It turns out the conversion wasn’t merely some kind of symbolic gesture, but a full conversion to a normal working mosque. (But tourists, both Muslim and others, are still very welcome.) […]