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Turkey and Istanbul
Tour of the Seven Churches on Turkeyโs Aegean coast
The Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament, is traditionally held to have been written by St John (variously the apostle, the divine, the evangelist) while exiled to the island of Patmos from Ephesus on the mainland. It is prefaced by letters to seven churches* on the…
Lying in state
Paola Pugsley explores the history of this now established custom When faced with a crisis like the death of a much beloved sovereign, human beings tend to seek comfort in ritual. One of these is the tradition of the lying in state, when the deceased is laid in his or…
The Twenty-day Sultan
To be a sultan even for only twenty days is an achievement. Cem Sultan paid for it for the rest of his life. Here is his story. Born the third son of Fatih Sultan Mehmet (the conqueror of Constantinople), Cem could style himself as โporphyrogenitusโ, being born when his father…
After the frescoes: the rise and fall (and rise) of Ephesus
Visitors touring Ephesus might easily end their visit at the Terraced Houses, with their beautiful frescoes and opulent marble floors. The degree of preservation is stunning. Left to the elements frescoes do not survive undamaged to such a height but as there is no trace of immediate reconstruction as such,…
The Colour Purple
Empires that tend to be large, and try to unite peoples of disparate ethnicities under one ruler, certainly have a communication problem, more so in antiquity when getting ideas around was a much slower business. The power, the benevolenceโindeed the very existence of a new emperor had to be drummed…
Invisible archaeology
Archaeology used to be mainly about the material remains of the past. They stood as witnesses of events and civilisations long past and encouraged archaeologists in their main activity, namely digging to find out more. Normally, if no clues could be seen above ground, nothing very much happened. Seeing beneath…
Ottoman submarines
Sultan Abdรผlhamid II (the last sultan with absolute powers), who reigned from 1876 until 1909, when he was deposed, was very much aware of the shortcomings of technological development in the Ottoman Empire at a time when foreign powers were progressing in this field in leaps and bounds. He could…
The legend of ลahmeran
If you happen to be in Tarsus, driving east along the central Adana Blv, you will find to your left, at the large roundabout 100m north of the Ulu Cami and the so-called Church of St Paul, a fountain with an intriguing statue in the middle of a small basin.…
The Zeugma Mosaics Saga
Visitors to southeast Turkey will be familiar with the โGipsy Girlโ, the portrait of a young lady (actually a maenad, one of the frenzied followers of Dionysus) exhibited amid tight security at the Gaziantep Museum. The imageโfeatured on the cover of Blue Guide Southeastern Turkeyโis now so ubiquitous (second only…
Re-interpreting the Trojan Horse
When is a horse not a horse? Nowhere in the Iliad is it mentioned that the Greeks brought the ten-year siege to a successful conclusion by tricking the Trojans into towing into their city a large wooden horse in which sufficient Greek warriors had been hidden to create havoc and…
Aegean Turkey: Troy to Bodrum
When Freya Stark was in this area in the early autumn of 1952, she was on a quest (the very word she used in the title of the book detailing her adventures: Ionia: A Quest). Armed with her Classics, she was looking for the material reality underpinning the narratives of…
The Black Fields of Kula
East of Sardis, the black fields of Kula extend for some 1800 square kilometres, roughly south of the Gediz Valley to the towns of Katakekaume (today’s Kula) to the east, and Alaลehir, the ancient Philadelphia, to the south. They were praised in antiquity for their fertility: the wine, the Katakekaumenites…
The many lives of Nasreddin Hoca
Nasreddin Hoca is the darling of the souvenir shops. More or less all over Turkey one can find the figure of the rotund sage with his outsize turban and huge prayer beads, on books, statues and statuettes and a variety of objects. His philosophy, with its touch of the absurd…
Tea (or coffee) with the Sultan
When you next order a Turkish coffee, have look at the glass of water that normally comes with it. If you are lucky, it will have an elegant sweep of curvy gold lines on it. You will easily recognise it: this is a tuฤra, a sultanโs cipher and now a…
A tale of three museums
Turkey has a comparatively long history in the business of setting up museums. As early as 1869 the decision had been taken to create a purpose-built Imperial Museum in Istanbul, grand enough to rival the Louvre in Paris. The idea was that provincial governors would fill it up by forwarding…
Princesses from the Trabzon Empire
For the Grand Comneni, the Christian rulers of the 14thโ15th-century Trabzon Empire, diplomacy was probably the best way to survive in a hostile environment. Enemies were all around, and they were all Muslim. If you could not fight and crush them, it was probably more prudent to join them and…
Being Mithridates
The death of Mithridates VI Eupator, the last king of Pontus, in 63 BC marks both the culmination and the implosion of the dream of an independent Pontic state uniting the shores of the Black Sea under one ruler. Born c. 134 BC in Sinop, Mithridates spent his life pursuing…
So what is the Turkish Van?
The Turkish Van is not a mode of transport. It is a domestic feline animal, otherwise known as the Van Cat from its home in the Van region of eastern Turkey. It is said that the cats first came to Europe from the Middle East, in the wake of returning…
Tying the Knot in Urfa
Yes, but which one? The Spanish, the Persian or the Turkish? When it comes to carpets there is plenty of choice and although I spent a week at it, I am not too sure which one it was. Carpet making has a long tradition in Turkey. It harks back to…
Hitherto unknown language discovered in east Anatolia
A Cambridge archaeologist has unearthed evidence for a previously unknown ancient language. The find was made during excavations at the palace of the Assyrian imperial governor at ancient Tushhan (modern Ziyaret Tepe, close to the Syrian border). See the report in Britainโs Independent newspaper and for a picture of part…
