of Apollo at Didyma (Didim in
Turkish) was among the most famous
oracles in the
ancient world, equal in importance
to the oracular temple at Delphi in Greece.
the southernmost of the three ancient
sites (Priene, Miletus and
Didyma) you can visit on a day
or Kuşadası (map).
There has been a temple here since
very early times, but the older structure
was destroyed by Cyrus of Persia in
494 BC. Construction began on the present
stupendous structure soon after.
as it was also called, was reached
by a Sacred
Way from the harbor of Panormus.
The huge white-marble temple is simply
amazing, with a forest of 120
giant columns at the front porch. At the
back of the porch, temple priests
met petitioners in a huge portal to
accept questions for the oracle, and
to deliver oracular poems.
||Light at the
end of the tunnel
tunnel ramps slope down from both sides
of the porch to the huge cella
(enclosure) which held
the sacred spring the
ruins of which remain. A priest would
drink from the spring to produce an
oracular pronouncement. Some believe
the water contained something that
induced a hypnotic or psychedelic state
in the drinker.
Around the temple in its precinct
are fields of ruined marble, including
several impressive pieces of sculpture,
especially the much-photographed head
of Medusa. (Compare this one
to the heads in the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul.)
Walk all the
way around the temple to get the full effect. At the rear,
outside the cella, a giant marble
column has fallen, perhaps toppled
in an earthquake, and been stabilized
as it fell, a cascade of tons of white
Didyma, now called Yenihisar, is a tourist
town, so you're
sure to be accosted by shopkeepers
and touts wanting
you to buy souvenirs, especially the
If you haven't already visited Miletus and Priene to
the north, those should be your next
You may also want to drive south
Beach for a swim, and/or
to Euromos with
its picturesque Temple
of Zeus, on the
road to Bodrum.
—by Tom Brosnahan
Bottom, head of Medusa.
of a column base