Street (cardo)

Street (cardo)

View of the main north-south street (cardo) looking south from the nymphaeum (backside visible in the lower-left portion of the image). There is a slight bend in the street in the right-center portion of the image.

This main street of Perge, the cardo, was close to 985-ft. [300 m.] long. It ran from the nymphaeum on the north side of the city to the Hellenistic City Gate on the south side.

On both sides of the street note the scattered columns. Outside of them, were covered walkways and numerous shops. The sixty-five foot [20 m.] wide street is itself divided into two lanes by a six-foot [2 m.] channel (in the center of the image proceeding away from the viewer). Freshwater flowed through this channel along the whole length of the street — from the nymphaeum to the Hellenistic Gate. The barriers inside of this large channel (visible) must have created visual and audible "rapids-effect."

Compare a similar center-of-the-street channel at Pisidian Antioch.

For a brief description of the biblical and historical significance of Perge click here.