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The sun rises in Aphrodisias above the Baba Mountain. In the old
days it used to be called Salbakos. The 2308-meter high top of Salbakos
provides, bad then as well as now, the valley with the fruitful waters of the
melted snow. The village Geyre, which is 13 kilometers from the city of Karacasu
in the Aydin province, is situated in the green nature as well. Its olive trees,
walnut trees, pomegranate trees and wine gardens have beoome an inseparable
unity. This plateau is about 600 meters above sea leve!. The
Dandalas creek, which runs from the South towards the West of the plateau, ends
after about 25 kilometers into the legendary Menderes River. The Menderes
quietly flows through the valley of civilization until it hits Milet, an
incredible stream near Karina, where the Goddess Aphrodite finally greets it,
where it is then handed over to the Mediterranean. Aphrodisias is the city of
the Goddess of Love.
But the goddess here has not always been the Aphrodite that we
know aboul This goddess came from way bad in history, but we have known her only
since the Neolithic era as the fertile mother of goddesses. She was the "Kybele
of Phryger", who developed of Anatolian land. It almost sems as if the cult
figure, which was found in the Aphrodite Temple, and is now in the Aphrodisias
museum, is Artemis of Ephesus.
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