Photos from Antalya Algebra Days VIII

Photos provided by several participants in 2006 are gathered in one big directory, with subdirectories.

Here I describe those non-mathematical aspects of the conference that can be illustrated with the photographs provided.

Antalya Hotel is on a quiet street parallel to the main road along the coast east of the city center. No rooms face the street. The hotel is atop a cliff, from which there is a view of the mountains on the other side of the Bay of Antalya.

One can reach the sea from the hotel by passing through an arbor and descending stairs to a platform, from which there is a ladder into the water.

On the first evening of the conference, there was a reception behind the hotel, beneath the plane-tree at the edge of the cliff in the setting sun. Among the Anatolian beverages available were fruit-juice and wine (with Doritos!) along with rakı and beer.

The Friday-afternoon excursion to Selge involved a long bus-ride. Along the way, we first stopped for tea along the shore of the Eurymedon River.

The River is now Köprü Çayı, presumably because its banks narrow into a canyon, spanned by an ancient bridge (köprü)—our next stop. Many people were photographed on the bridge, or as they descended to the river and milled about on the rocks there before climbing back up. Though the bridge does carry light automobile traffic, some wondered just how secure it was.

Selge itself was way up above the bridge, on a mountain-top. The bus took many hairpin turns as it climbed the face of the mountain; but we also passed through forest. When we reached the living village, we were greeted by girls and boys. The women wanted to sell things, such as wooden spoons carved from the strawberry trees growing about. I know the source of the wood, because I asked one of the women. It was hard to get her to speak Turkish rather than German; but she showed me one of the trees, growing out of the sides of the old theater.

Not much remains of the ancient city but the theater, into which we clambered. Supposedly the theater had space for twenty thousand spectators. The existing village is said to have but a thousand residents, and the orchestra of the theater is used mainly by cows.

I think many of us wondered how the ancient city could have supported so many people. My guess is that the mountain-top had a lot more topsoil in those days, now lost through human activity. Now the sides of the hills are levelled out into terraces. We asked a woman about one field, where onions and wheat were growing. She said they also grew barley and oats.

“Abla,” I asked, “who eats the oats?”

“Nobody,” she said; “just the animals.”

“But I eat oats!” I pointed out.

“Afiyet olsun!” she wished me; “Bon appetit!”

I did buy one of her strawberry-wood spoons.