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WONDERS OF NATURE
Pamukkale. Nature miracle
Perrault's tale of the sleeping beauty is familiar to everyone since childhood. But sometimes nature gives us surprises, next to which even fairy-tale stories pale. Do you want, for example, to see the realm of dormant... waterfalls? And for this you don’t even have to go to distant lands, since this kingdom is located very close to our borders - on the peninsula of Asia Minor. The eastern, belonging to Turkey, coast of the Aegean Sea seems to be bordered by a garland of small Greek islands, the names of which have been known to us from school years from history textbooks: Chios, Samo, Rhodes, Lesbos, Ikaria and many other, smaller ones.
A little south of Samos on the Turkish coast, you can easily find on the map the city of Miletus, no less famous by ancient historians. But this time we are not interested in the history of ancient Hellas. We will head with you up the valley of the Bolshoy Menderes River, which flows into the sea here, so that after one and a half hundred kilometers we will be at the foot of the extinct Pamukkale volcano. To turn out ... and freeze with delight and some feeling of the implausibility of the picture that opened to the eye. A 150-meter cascade of frozen, sparkling white waterfalls, almost three kilometers wide, encircles the base of the volcano, and countless pools and bowls filled with turquoise water alternate with snow-white openwork laces of stalactites and stalagmites. The Turkish name Pamukkale means "cotton fortress". Indeed, the cascades and terraces of Pamukkale resemble a fairy-tale castle, built of white, like cotton wool, calcareous tufa - travertine. Calm and not at all formidable in appearance, the volcano keeps hot magma chambers in its bowels that have not yet cooled down, and rainwater, penetrating through cracks to the red-hot belly of the mountain, then comes to the surface in the form of four high-temperature springs, the water of which is saturated with calcium, magnesium and carbon dioxide. The temperature of the Pamukkale springs reaches 38 degrees, and together they pour out 250 liters of hot mineral water per second. Flowing down the ledges of rocks into the valley, this water cools down, and some of the salts precipitate in the form of openwork travertine streaks. Every year, two thousand cubic meters of calcium carbonate are deposited on the slopes of Pamukkale, and this has been going on for more than a hundred thousand years. Since ancient times, people have attributed healing properties to the waters of the springs. And they learned about the existence of this miracle of nature at least a thousand years before our era. An ancient legend tells how a local girl who did not shine with beauty, desperate to find a groom, threw herself into one of the lakes formed on the sinter terraces in order to commit suicide. But a miracle happened - she did not drown, but went ashore, becoming beautiful, like a goddess. And the young prince passing by was so captivated by the beauty of the young maiden that he took her as his wife. The waters of Pamukkale really have a healing effect. They are especially beneficial for human skin. That is why even ancient hunters and farmers came here in search of a cure for their wounds and illnesses. The springs, together with the fantastic landscape surrounding them, were perceived by them as a mysterious magical castle - the abode of the underground gods - and served as an object of worship. In the XNUMXth century BC, the rulers of ancient Lydia built a military post at the top of the travertine terraces, the remains of which can still be seen today. Then, after the victorious march of the troops of Alexander the Great through Asia Minor, the king of Pergamon, Eumenes, founded a city on a volcanic plateau above the valley, which was called Hieropolis ("Holy"). The ruins of temples, palaces, theaters and baths of that time have also survived to our time, and ancient columns, tombstones and carved stone decorations now rest at the bottom of the warm pools of Pamukkale, giving them a peculiar, incomparable appearance: a kind of mixture of natural wonders and masterpieces of human hands. Hieropolis grew and developed for many centuries, becoming one of the richest trading centers of the peninsula during the Roman Empire. True, in 60 AD, during the reign of Nero, the city was completely destroyed by a catastrophic earthquake. But after two or three decades, Hieropolis revived again, and new, even more beautiful temples, arcades, residential and commercial buildings, libraries, canals and aqueducts appeared on the limestone terraces of Pamukkale. Luxurious buildings of healing baths rose near the springs. And on the plateau were erected the sanctuaries of Apollo and his mother Latona. At the foot of the mountains, in a cave that bore the name of the god of the underworld Pluto, the priests demonstrated a real miracle to foreigners visiting the city: the cats and pigeons they brought, planted on the floor, almost immediately died at the feet of the pilgrims, while the powerful lord of the bowels saved people's lives. It is difficult for us now to be struck by such a sad sight - we know that other underground cavities in volcanic regions, for example, have the same property. Cave of the Dog in Naples, at the foot of Vesuvius. The reason for the death of small animals was also established: they suffocated in a layer of carbon dioxide that accumulated in the lower part of the cave, while the lighter clean air that filled its upper part allowed people to breathe freely and leave the grotto unharmed. The heyday of Hieropolis fell on the II-III centuries AD. It was then that a grandiose necropolis arose to the east of the city - perhaps the most extensive cemetery in the world. You can spend hours wandering around the “city of the dead” that stretches for several kilometers and marvel at the skill of people who almost two thousand years ago created sarcophagi, tombstones, chapels and mausoleums decorated with skillful carvings, all from the same white travertine. In the era of Byzantine rule, Hieropolis was decorated with new, now Christian churches and colonnades, but in the XIV century, with the arrival of the Ottoman Turks, the beautiful city declined. At present, only majestic ruins remind of its former splendor. Fortunately, the creations of nature, unlike the masterpieces of human hands, are not so easily destroyed, and the snow-white sintered terraces of Pamukkale have survived to this day in all their original beauty. On the slopes of the mountain in natural hollows on the surface of the terraces, hot water formed many lakes, bowls, dishes and bowls filled with moisture of all shades of blue and greenish. The total number of these natural basins reaches 20 thousand. The largest of them have an area of 70-100 square meters, and their depth ranges from 0,5 to 2,5 meters. Along the edges of the terraces are decorated with orderly rows of stalactites, and on the steep slopes you can admire real cascades of calcareous tufa, similar to petrified waterfalls. Travertine precipitates out of the water very quickly: it is enough to lower, for example, an earthenware vase into the pool, and in a few hours it will be covered, like snow, with a fragile coating of calcareous tufa. The stone shell also covered many ancient buildings, reliably preserving them from all the vicissitudes that erased the traces of the former greatness of Hieropolis for thousands of years. Now archaeologists have opened one of the streets of the city, returning it to people in its original form, just as the streets and houses of Pompeii returned to us from the thickness of volcanic ash. The famous baths have survived to this day, delighting people with their thermal waters in the days of Ancient Rome. The corner where the healing spring is located is called Charonium, named after the character of Greek myths, who transported the souls of the dead across the river of oblivion - Styx - to Hades, the abode of the shadows of the dead. The ancients believed that it was here that the entrance to the underworld was located. In Charonium (also called Plutonium), a powerful spring of hot (up to 35 degrees) mineral water, richly saturated with bubbles of carbon dioxide, springs directly from the rock. In summer, when the air temperature on the plateau rises above 40 degrees, the water seems cool and you can sit or lie in the pool next to Charon's spring for hours, enjoying the healing comfort of the ancient Roman baths. It is difficult, almost impossible to describe in words all the magical charm of this corner of Turkey. But everyone who has visited Pamukkale forever takes away in his memory the fantastic spectacle of terraces and fields, as if covered with petrified snow, lacy stalactite curtains and turquoise bowls in white-pink and cream frames, for a long time feeling the tickling touch of bursting bubbles of "champagne" on their skin , which has been pouring down the slopes of an ancient volcano for thousands of years already. Author: B.Wagner
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