{"id":9918,"date":"2022-02-01T19:15:59","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T00:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=9918"},"modified":"2024-05-31T11:30:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T15:30:04","slug":"brown-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2022\/02\/01\/brown-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2022-02-roadtrip-signs\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Click on the map to enlarge it)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Position: 36\u00b054’08.0″N 36\u00b044’44.3″E<\/a><\/h6>\n

Brakes screeching, smoke and dust billowing from under her rear tyres, Clio, our trusty Renault, juddered to a halt. Coaxing her into reverse we pulled back for another view of the brown sign indicating a tourist attraction. Next we thumbed the words into Google for more information \u2013 there\u2019s usually just enough to swing us off track. Turning down the side road, our next 20 minutes is a game of pothole whack-a-mole. My experience driving in Mongolia helps and Clio\u2019s subframe lives to fight another day. Here\u2019s a few of our favourite serendipitous stops:<\/p>\n

Yesemek<\/h6>\n

Five hundred metres from Syria\u2019s border, halfway between Gaziantep and Hatay, a brown sign pointed up a dirt road and said, ‘Yesemek’<\/a>. After an hour\u2019s drive through the green pastures and rolling foothills west of Kilis it was time for a break. We\u2019d gone down to the Syrian border earlier that morning for a look-see. Only 50km from Aleppo, the crossing looked both calm and quiet. A dozen trucks sat alongside the road, probably waiting for clearance.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rows of tire repair and mechanic\u2019s workshops looked like they could do with some business. Before the civil war, local Turks regularly drove into Aleppo to stock up on cheap booze and cigarettes. Now traffic seems limited to commercial trucking. I suspect the courage of the truckers making runs into Syria today wasn\u2019t too different from traders traveling the same route 1,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

Yesemek is a 3,350-year-old quarry and sculpture workshop on the banks of a wide river plain. The artifacts are mainly examples of Hittite statuary and carvings. Spread out over several good-sized fields on a hillside, there must be hundreds of pieces, each maintained by sheep mowers. Most are about a metre or so high. There is something about the clean lines and friendly faces of the sphinxes, winged lions, and man-bears that makes the stones seem almost cuddly. Artisans at the workshop roughed out the carvings which were then transported to their destination for final touches and polishing. Personally, I like the more unfinished look. Given how many there are, I wondered if the place was abandoned in a hurry.<\/p>\n

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