Lured by a shared compulsion to explore the Roman world, the great war photographer Sir Don McCullin and I set out to make a book on Roman Turkey, writes Barnaby Rogerson. We drove 5,000 miles in the course of three years. Here we cover our final journey, and on page 88 we look back at the places we discovered on all three of our memorable expeditions. The result is Don McCullin in Turkey: Journeys Across Roman Asia Minor, a book of powerful black-and-white images, for which I have provided the commentary. It will be published in 2023.

Ephesus, Aphrodisias and Pergamon remain the three graces of any tour of Roman Turkey but, having visited them 30 years ago, I could admire how much is still being discovered, and how much has been patiently restored. We were both greatly moved by the Temple of Artemis at Sardis and Didyma’s shrine of Apollo, not to forget the aqueduct at Aspendos, the avenues of columns at Perge and the hilltop ruins of Sagalassos.

We also owe a debt of gratitude to the curators who have turned the sculpture galleries of Istanbul, Selçuk, Burdur and Antalya into unsung wonders.