Today I am resting in the morning at Pamukale while almost everyone else goes on to visit Hierapolis. I will take a taxi from the hotel to join them at lunchtime, but for now I have a little time to write and to relax. This whole area is full of hot springs and people come for health treatments and mineral baths. We are staying in a huge and very nice hotel where buses full of people seem to come and go. Right in between all of the buildings there are pools that cascade down from hot springs and then a big blue regular pool at the bottom. The water gets hotter as you go up the different pools. At the bottom of each of the pools is red silt that you can rub over your skin and allow to dry before rinsing it off. The silt feels good. The water at the top is so hot you can’t hardly stand it!
Yesterday we visited a different archaeological site. It is called Aphrodesias. One thing it has is lots of inscriptions. The people I am with have studied ancient languages and many of them can read inscriptions. They say it is hard because there are no spaces between words and nothing to indicate sentences beginning and ending.
Did you know that sometimes they scratched out part of an inscription? Here are two inscriptions where there are scratch outs. Scholars think that some of them may be because someone made a mistake. Maybe they spelled a word wrong. Sometimes it is really obvious that one person’s name has been scratched out of EVERY inscription.
Inscriptions are usually in honor of someone. If the person falls from favor it is possible that their
name will be scratched out. In this inscription there is a large scratch out. Can you also see the two holes below the writing? What do you think those are for?
When I went to Egypt in 2004 some of the inscribed names were scratched out from the hieroglyphics. I think the two holes make it look like a domino.
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