An ancient connection

Young Chang

When Lydia Ringwald took photographs during her trip to Turkey last

year, she intended to share the images with the world, which she

considers her extended family.

For this Laguna Hills photographer, the ruins of ancient civilizations

make up our common homeland. Traveling to them is more a pilgrimage for

her than a mundane tour.

“To me, the classical world is part of our education, about the

foundation of civilization,” said Ringwald, whose exhibit “In the Realm

of the Goddess -- A Visual Voyage” hangs at the Newport Beach Central

Library. “It’s our common heritage.”

From the Lycian Coast to Aphrodisias, from caves to capsized columns,

she photographed cities and sites that were built, during a time before

Christianity, Judaism and Islam became the major world religions, to

honor gods and goddesses.

Only ruins remain at most of the locations, save for the occasional

colliseum-like amphitheater and intact temple. But they hint at how

elegant art and architecture were during B.C. times.

In Cappadocia, Ringwald photographed churches that had been carved

into caves by Christians needing to worship secretly while hiding from

the Romans.

In Pergamum, she stepped on ancient clay pipes that emerged to the

surface through the eroded soil at the site of an emperor’s fountain

called Hadrian’s Fountain.

In the area of the former Hittite Empire, Ringwald photographed a

lion’s gate, one of many from 3000 B.C. that served as a ceremonial entry

way to a sacred site.

Coastal Turkey welcomed her with rock tombs strewn on shore. She got

off a boat and stepped into a world of broken treasures.

“That’s why I say the world is a museum,” Ringwald said. “You’re

astounded and you feel so privileged because you feel like you’re walking

in a living museum.”

The artist, also a professor of English at Golden West and Saddleback

community colleges, said she has always been intrigued by the ancient

world. As a high school student, reading Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey”

made her want to visit Troy.

Her daughter Alexis, who visited Turkey with her mother last summer,

inherited the love for the old. She took courses in the ancient world

during her first year at Yale University, which has archeological sites

in Turkey, and agrees with her mother on the point of all this.

“It exposes people to history and allows them to have a mental picture

that they can’t gain just by reading,” the 18-year-old said.

Her favorite site was the Temple of Aphrodite in Aphrodisias, a city

built to honor the goddess Aphrodite.

“It was just very powerful,” the daughter said.

One of Ringwald’s photos captures something more alive than inanimate

ruins. Called “Whirling Dervishes,” the picture was taken at a Sufi

monastery in Konya. The spinning figures hark back to an ancient cult

that believed dancing and whirling would help one reach higher levels of

consciousness.

In Aspendos, she photographed a well-preserved outdoor theater that

houses performances to this day. The Bolshoi Ballet performed “Spartacus”

while the mother and her daughter were there.

“You could really spend days in each of these sites,” Ringwald said.

“Archeologists have unearthed only the top of it.”

FYI

WHAT: “In the Realm of the Goddess -- A Visual Voyage”

WHEN: Through June 30

WHERE: Newport Beach Central Library, 1000 Avocado Ave., Newport Beach

COST: Free

CALL: (949) 717-3800