Pamukkale Travertine Terraces

About

The blinding-white cascade of mineral pools below the city, built up over hundreds of thousands of years by calcium-laden hot springs, was the reason Hierapolis existed at all. Strabo recorded that the water hardened into stone so fast that channels dug for it turned into solid stone dams within a season. The same springs fed the city's baths and were credited with the sacred power that made the Plutonium cave next door an entrance to the underworld.

What happened here

It was put up to be argued with. Public monuments carry an inscription at eye height naming who paid, what for, and by whose authority, because being read is the whole return on the investment. People meet at them, give directions by them, and shelter under them. Children climb them. The bronze fittings are stolen often enough that they are re-attached with lead. On anniversaries the base is garlanded and the local council makes a short speech nobody listens to. Monuments also date the town for you: a run of them along one street shows which families were rising in which decade, and which ones stopped. When a family falls out of favour, the name is chiselled out and the stone is quietly reused.

In ancient writing

• Strabo, Geography 13.4.14

  Describes the Hierapolis water as petrifying so readily that irrigation channels became solid stone dams.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamukkale
• https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/485

Nearby

Hierapolis Plutonium

850 m

Hierapolis Temple of Apollo

895 m

Hierapolis Theatre

1.1 km

Hierapolis Nymphaeum of the Tritons

1.2 km

Hierapolis Necropolis

1.3 km

Hierapolis Frontinus Gate

1.3 km