Amazing things to be learned about design here. Lessons from 40 B.C. or thereabouts.

We toured Ephesus today, the largest port in Asian Minor during its heyday, now a treasured ruin in the beautiful hills near the pristine coastline of Turkey.

It’s unbelievable. Bas reliefs like the expensive reproductions we see at market in Dallas. Except these are marble, the real thing, and they’re just lying on the ground. Everywhere.

Bas reliefs are those chunky pieces of carved stone carved into a variety of patterns  and shapes. They are the forerunners of modern-day crown molding. You know the dentil shape that looks like teeth or the kind that looks like eggs?

They’re nothing new.

The earliest buildings around the Mediterranean were made of wood in a post and lintel style. Today we call it a doorway. That trim around your front door? Think Greek temple, baby. That’s where it began. Without the trim, it would just be another hole in the wall. The frame-out makes it a shape that we recognize as an entry. And that dentil molding? The “teeth” are a reproduction of the cuts made to fasten the pieces together. Now we buy it at Home Depot just to make our dining rooms look…Greek?

And I’m forever recommending fluted curtain rods for window treatments. Ancient Roman marble columns were fluted like the Greek stone columns they imitated, which in turn imitated the native eucalyptus trees with their peeling bark.

And I thought fluted curtain rods just *looked* classy. They look, and are, classic. And we humans still respond to the carefully thought-out symmetry of Greek lines.

Bas reliefs are also known as “lower reliefs”, meaning they’re not meant to be fancy. The carvings don’t even attempt to come out of the stone, like higher reliefs or sculpture. Bas reliefs (pronounced “bah”) are strictly decorative in nature. I love them.

You’re allowed to touch them in Turkey, a major no-no in Greece or Italy. I ran my hand over the cool marble again and again, trying to feel something reach out from the past. It didn’t, but it was amazing to touch something so very old.