The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1923-05-11
TURK CAPITAL is
RICH IN HISTORY
Anyora Stronghold on Frontiers
of Roman Empire.
WAS OCCUPIED BY CRUSADERS

Angora is picturesque directly you
get outside it, for only her can you
see the two Gibraltar-like rocks that
form the background to the present
day town. They lie end to end, sep
arated by a steep ravine through
which rushes a narrow, muddy stream.
The hill on the further side of this
river is bare, except for a crumbling
pile of stones which passes for the
ruins of a memorial to the legend that
Tamerlane stood there in 1902 to re-
had overthrow Sultan Bayazid in the
plain below. But the rocky height
that looms above Angora town is
crowned with an unbroken wall Of
medieval Notifications.
Its bastions are of red sandstone,
and shaped to a sharp point, like the
bows of a ship. The unconscious van
daiism of the Middle ages is witnessed
in it's structure, for among the huge
freestone blocks that form it are built
in all sorts of relics of the dead and
gone Angoras of the past Here is a
delicately fretted cornice from an old
Greek temple. Clos by the fragment
of some majestic ] omar inscription,
clear cut as the day it was first carved,
recalls the time when Angora was a
stronghold of the frontiers of the
Roman empire. Gravestones and brok-
en- bits of f~riezes, millstones and Rom
an titles have all gone to strengthen
the still unbroken wall.
Oddly Foreign Look.
Lower down the hill stand the gray
ruins of a castle of lfeudal type. Per-
haps Godefroy de Bouillon built it
when the Crusaders held Angora for
twenty years. 1t has an oddly for
eign look here in the heart of Asia
Minor. Its crumbling battlements
would harmonic much better with a
background of green English meadow
land or Norman orchards.
But apart from this hill citadel An
CORA has no characteristics that it !
does not share with every other of the
1rab village towns of Anatolia. Yet,
half hidden behind its largest mosque
S a splendid relic of what must have
been an Angora out of all comparison,
lore beautiful and stately. 1t is the
'uined fragment of a Roman temple OF
augustus, just a square decorated
lrchway 30 feet high, leading to a
.hanceI, i'm which a flight of steps
,oes down to a vaulted dungeon be-
cath where the altar must have
TODD, entered by a doorway only two
eet high. The walls of this monu-
1ent to q race that was not only con-
uering, but constructive, are of free
tone with several courses of sand
tone of a brilliant crimson. They
till bear broken patches of frieze OF
Ireek wave design, and in another
lace, Of a conventional pattern rep
ssenting apparently an octopus.
Much of this old Roman masonry
lat still stands so firmly is inscribed
18th half effaced histories of the cam
aigns of the "Divine Augustus"
irved, as the Latin script says, by
Is own order. But there are also
any marks of it's eventfui history
nee those times.
MdOc by SiuSCOSi
Here is a Maltese cross hammered
If with the chisel. Did some idle
usader, perhaps from far away Eng
fill in his afternoon by making
? Close by an industrious Turk has
tipped a long phrase in the difficult
ligraphy Of his language, and oppo-
e a modern Greek, in an impulse OF
avado, has scratched his name with
e late 19%14-1922.
Tombstones of old Roman projects
prone on the ground and close by
I'm stand the turbaned headstones OF
) graves of Turkish janissaries who
ID here in the Sixteenth and Seven =
nth centuries.
The idea of rebuilding some such
posing city as the Romans set upon
s open and lofty plateau is strong
the minds of the new Turkish gov
lment. They plan it in the plain
tside the present own and say that
n will be broader than the
amps Elysees. The scheme, in its
sent form, reminds one rather OF
layout Of the city of Eden, where
rtin Whitehall Of Angora is the
WAY station, for there the Premier
IS in what was meant for the sta
masters house, while the French
resentative has a similar building
the platform and the American
issary to the Angora government
h his wife occupies a railway coach
ed up inside as the most delight