Bergama, Turkey (ancient Pergamum) The Book of Revelation was written for a specific audience: the congregations of churches in seven towns in what is now western Turkey. The fortunes of those seven towns—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea—have risen and fallen over the centuries since the Biblical book was written. Bergama, once the international city of Pergamum but now a village, exemplifies the changing tide of history for these seven locales. Though Pergamum apparently served from prehistoric times as a military stronghold at the summit of a mountain between two branches of the Caicus River, it came […]
