A.F.R.s: Turkish Archaeology 101

Actually, I have no intention of even trying to sum up Turkey’s long and bewildering history—I’ll leave that to a long plane or bus ride and a good guidebook.

However, as pictures are worth a thousand words, I’ll give you a visual smattering of the kinds of sites you’re likely to see in the country.

Turkey is literally strewn with ruins going back millennia. So spoiled are they for history in Turkey that artefacts other countries would put in a museum might end up being used for a new building, a coffee table, parking spot… or be simply forgotten by the side of the road.

For those of us from The New World this means every turn is a wonderful jumble of history, archaeology and anthropology, from Roman amphitheatres to Seljuk outposts to Greek columns.

Some bits, however, end up relegated to the designation I learned from a local guide in Oman years ago, when he was yet again asked the significance of a random historical chunk lying in the midst of unidentifiable ruins. “That” he said authoritatively, “is an A.F.R.” Quietly he turned to me and said under his breath, “It’s Another F*%#ing Rock.”