Ephesus-Efez (Ephesia) photos, including almah Virgin Mary hut (and que)

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Top left photo-foto; the almah 'Virgin' Mary hut (a not likely term frankly for a mortal).
Almah means maid, maybe a step up from an Amat (servant or slave) often of the gods.

As usual there is a long que waiting their turn outside of Mary's house. So whats new?
Her hut is 7km south of Curates Street Ephesus, in ancient Ephesia or modern Izmir-province.

apocraphal legends say Mary died in Bethlehem and her remains were carried on a litter or bed to a tomb in Jerusalem in the valley of Kidron.... Catholic Dogma says she was taken up to heaven. 
Peter came from Rome, John came from Ephesus, to be with her as were a great many others. make of that legend what you wish, but the stone hut is a major shrine or chapel to her in a mostly moslem country. The Turks at that! still, if she had been with John in Ephesus...?

It is said Saint Luke was buried just south of Curates street amid some rocks. {this is doubtful, it is better described as a shrine to st.luke..now at least. He was in turkey it seems, but the evidence of the bull motif and healing (for Luke was a medic some say) are formerly of the God Seraphis a healer and osiris-apis-bull in zeus format; the church of Ephesus at later times might have mistaken the signs; that or it was a christianization of a pagan place....or his remains were moved. Novel thing is the offical remains are from well 130 ce so maybe Luke is not in Rome?? I dunno either}

The Church in Ephesus, who lost there first love and wondered why the church did not have a great temple (hint hint).... (found paul spoke in his circular of a pretend-temple for his invisable-god who has no neat-statue and threatened them with candle-stick-removal!! How you remove a pretend candle-stick from a pretend and invisable temple no-one knows...)

(looks like an early christian retirement area away from the ancient-troubles in Jerusalem) but many of the crosses in Ephesus are pagan symbols of Diana and the lunar cycle, later adopted by the christians as their own. (see the 600-500 bc coins of Efez)

People used to make excuses not to visit the Temple of Diana-Artemis when it was raining or damp and blamed the roads as the Temple was built in a marsh which floods into a pool of Diana.
The pool is there to wash the pilgrims.
so that ancient bunking-off excuse doesnt wash or hold water (groan).
And i suppose if it was not the rain and the roads then it was the heat!

There is a good reason the temple of diana was built in a sunken field (such as it is now). This is because the folklore and legend says that one day a wind dropped a statue of Diana from the sky and it landed in the marsh land. This was seen as divine providence by the farmers who build a temple for the goddess; and rebuilt it many times over for her. 

The Romans said the High-God Jupiter had sent her statue to Ephesus, but they would. All the marble seems to have been lifted and used to build the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (former Constantinople) during the christian administration.