Saturday 15th March

Today we set off to go to Aphrodisia, the former capital of Caria in Greek times.

Aphrodisia under the Greeks had the Temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Later the Romans took over the city and when Rome became Christian a Bishop was appointed who wanted to remove the memory of Aphrodisia and renamed it Stauropolis in 640CE

The whole site has been under excavation since the 1960s started by New York University and later led by a Turkish archaeologist who trained at NYU and devoted his life to the dig. He was homored by the Turkish government to be buried on the site.

Today the temperature was 28C/82F and clear skies. Half of Turkey’s power is solar generated and with 360 days of sunshine it seems very sensible. There is however always a breeze and on some mountains there are modern windmills als generating power.

After the tour of Aphrodisias we went on to visit the Weaving Centre where the train girls and women to make the traditional double knotted rugs. The government supports the weaving industry in order to keep the skills live and to provide employment for the women in this rural area.

The strongest carpets are silk on silk weft; next strongest is wool on cotton mercerised, and third is wool on wool weft. The fibres are all dyed using local natural dyes plus indigo from India.

The knots are double knots over two weft threads. As she weaves the knots she has a short sharp knife in her right hand to cut the warp threads.

But she works at speed that is mesmerising to watch.

From the weaving demo we went through to see them draw the silk out of the silk worm cocoon using a great steaming vat and a stick brush.

And from the silk extraction demonstration we were taken into the sales room. The carpet price is determined by the materials (silk on silk the most expensive) and the number of knots per square inch/cm. They had many examples of silk weaving in finely detailed pictures as well as miniature carpet designs.

It was a lovely visit and some of the modern carpets with traditional designs but the colours change as you walk round the carpet.