Story
The story of Pamukkale
The white cliffs of Pamukkale are made of stone that began life as a soft gel. Seventeen hot springs rise here, with temperatures between 35 °C and 100 °C. Their water, oversaturated with calcium carbonate, is carried 320 metres to the head of the terraces; as it reaches the surface, carbon dioxide escapes and the calcium carbonate settles out, first as a soft gel that slowly hardens into travertine.
The Turkish name points to the bright, snow-white limestone shaped over thousands of years. The whole formation is about 2,700 metres long, 600 metres wide and 160 metres high, and the ancient Greek city of Hierapolis was built on top of it. From the hills across the valley, 20 km from central Denizli, you can see it gleam.
Visitors have come for the springs since Classical antiquity, and in 1988 the site joined the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Hierapolis.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Denizli
- Pamukkale Archeology MuseumThe Hierapolis Archaeological Museum or Pamukkale Archaeological Museum is an archaeological museum located in the ancient city of Hierapolis within the borders of Pamukkale in Denizli Province, Turkey.
- Laodicea on the LycusLaodicea on the Lycus, earlier Diospolis and Rhoas, was a rich ancient Greek city in Asia Minor, now Turkey, on the river Lycus (Çürüksu).
- HierapolisHierapolis was a Hellenistic Greek city in Phrygia, in southwestern Anatolia, Turkey.
- Ploutonion at HierapolisThe Ploutonion at Hierapolis or Pluto's Gate was a ploutonion (a religious site dedicated to the god Pluto) in the ancient city of Hierapolis near Pamukkale in modern Turkey's Denizli Province.