ANAMED Blog

However, for several decades, photography has become, in the words of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, a “popular art.”[3] Film cameras and the slow and complex process of developing photographs have given way to digital cameras and smartphones capable of capturing, in high definition, fixed images of our private lives and our travels. These digital tools allow for easy and instantaneous snapshots. They lead us, in a consumerist way, to take an unlimited number of images, most of which are stored indefinitely in our smartphones or computers, without much consideration.

Photography is today overexploited and tends to be conditioned by the dominant visual discourses conveyed by the vast media landscape. These discourses construct cultural codes that define the value of a place, transforming a specific site into an appreciable, visitable, or unmissable and “instagrammable” place. The same places and monuments of Istanbul, as in any tourist city, become the subject of countless photographs, or rather the background in front of which people pose in their best light. These stereotypical photographs, whose colors are often oversaturated by smartphone filters that alter our perception of reality, flood the internet and social media. Unconsciously, these discourses and images influence the way we perceive, experience, and photograph places.

Since my arrival at ANAMED, I have wanted to build my own experience and perception of Istanbul, trying to detach myself from these visual dictates (the choice of black and white photography is partly a result of this intention). My research on the experience of the architectural space of Byzantine monuments has undoubtedly influenced my relationship to the city and to photography. Of course, the architecture of the Byzantine buildings attracted most of my attention.

Fig. 3. Vefa Kilise Camii, western façade (photo by the author). Fig. 4: Küçük Ayasofya Camii (St. Sergius and Bacchus), columns and capitals (photo by the author).

Beyond photographic documentation, it is possible to look at and photograph the monuments we visit and study in a different way, especially by examining how they are integrated into the modern cityscape and how people use their spaces today. In doing so, details such as the contrast between the recently restored Tekfur Sarayı and the nearby pile of rubble, the calmness of a man praying in Fenari Isa Camii (Constantine Lips Monastery), or the movement of a child playing ball in front of Zeyrek Camii (Pantokrator Monastery) can attract our attention.

Fig. 5. Tekfur Sarayı (photo by the author).

Fig. 6. Man in Fenari Isa Camii (Constantine Lips Monastery) (photo by the author). Fig. 7. Child in front of Zeyrek Camii (Pantokrator Monastery) (photo by the author).

Besides Byzantine and Ottoman architectural heritage, Istanbul’s vibrant and colorful urban space deserves more attention. Istiklal Caddesi, which is difficult to avoid if you live in ANAMED, is passed by thousands of people every day. Many of them take selfies and pictures of each other or walk around with their smartphones in hand, continuously filming the hustle and bustle of the street, probably without really paying attention to the urban space. To experience it and to photograph it, it is necessary to slow down, to stop, to turn around, and to look up above the sometimes-oppressive crowd to observe and capture, for example, some architectural details or a man discreetly watching urban life from his window.

Fig. 8. Istiklal Caddesi (photo by the author). Fig. 9. Istiklal Caddesi (photo by the author).

Fig. 10. Sıraselviler Caddesi (photo by the author).

To experience Istanbul through photography, it is necessary to voluntarily lose oneself in the city and to be open to possibilities, opportunities, unexpected events, and encounters. In this way, it is possible to observe space, architecture, scenes of everyday life, people’s attitudes, spontaneous movements, effects of light and shadow. In short, the practice of photography allows us to see what is attractive and visible but also to pay attention to what is ordinary and sometimes hidden or invisible. Such an approach to the city can sometimes be uncomfortable, as it puts us in a contradictory position: between a voyeur, eager for aesthetic visuals, and a detached onlooker, aware of the various aspects of a place and its atmosphere. By unknowingly photographing children playing in the street, a man painfully carrying a washing machine, or a woman sitting on a bench focused on her phone, I experienced this ambivalent situation myself. Photography can thus lead us to question our relationships with others and sometimes to overcome our fears of rejection when we ask permission to take someone’s picture.

Fig. 11. Tünel, Istiklal Caddesi (photo by the author). Fig. 12. Children, Balat (photo by the author).

Fig. 13. House, Fatih (photo by the author). Fig. 14. House, Fatih (photo by the author).

Fig. 15. Man, Fatih (photo by the author).

The act of photography, in my opinion, has other effects on the person who practices it. It teaches us patience in order to capture the desired image, a quality we often lack in our productivity-driven society. Experiencing urban space through photography can allow us to take a break from the frenetic pace of our academic lives, as it leads us to develop an alternative conception of space and time.

Fig. 16. Cat, Fatih (photo by the author). Fig. 17. Woman, Taksim (photo by the author).

Therefore, photography is not just a matter of pressing a button to mechanically fix a part of the urban space and its inhabitants in an image. By walking around, looking for photographable objects and framing them, we appropriate the space and try to give a meaning to what we see. Photography can then be used by anyone (with a camera or a smartphone) to record their own experience of space, to visualize their perceptions and engagements with the place, or to explore their aesthetic and expressive capacities.

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[1]  https://albert-kahn.hauts-de-seine.fr/en/collections/presentation/a-documentation-project-for-the-world/the-archives-de-la-planete.

[2] https://explore.psl.eu/fr/ressources-et-savoirs-psl/projets-psl-explore/la-phototheque-gabriel-millet-ecole-pratique-des.

One morning I am walking down Yüksek Kaldırım Street to go to Karaköy. I am about to merge with Bankalar Street. There, I saw on my right two identical purple banners. They announce that the “I am the author Suat Derviş” exhibition will remain open until 30 September 2022 in the Avrupa Arcade in Beyoğlu. Born into a wealthy family in late Ottoman İstanbul, Suat Derviş (1903–1972) was a journalist, novelist, feminist, and communist. Fatmagül Berktay describes Derviş as a critical and perseverant outsider both to “ruling bourgeoisie” and “formulaic left” circles of her time, “a rebel refusing to be a victim.” The more I look at these identical banners, the more Derviş becomes alive. It feels like she is slightly bending her head. I have six days to see the exhibition. I should not forget it.

The same but larger Suat Derviş banner welcomes us in the Avrupa Arcade. With a dear friend, we find the modest exhibition hall on the second floor. My friend is surprised that Derviş had done so much politically in her life, yet so little is known about her. I couldn’t agree more. I purchase Derviş’s interviews, entitled Çöken İstanbul (Collapsing İstanbul), and one of her many novels, Fosforlu Cevriye. I enjoy and finish reading them in a week. Given her attention to poverty in İstanbul in the 1930s, some of her interviews remind me of Friedrich Engels’s The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845). Perhaps it is the power of ethnography that I find common in both, almost a century apart. Pınar Öğünç describes Suat Derviş as “a recording device with a heart and a brain.”[1] I agree. Derviş conveys the hardships, feelings, or persona of her everyday interviewees in a non-condescending way, creating a sense that the reader strolls in İstanbul’s backstreets with her. Derviş’s work doesn’t feel old, because similar class realities and experiences prevail today.

Fig. 2. Avrupa Pasajı, 27 September 2022 (by author).

Let me give some examples from “What Could Be Seen on Beyoğlu Street in a Cold Winter Night?”—an account of her trips to İstiklal between 6 February 1937 and 6 March 1937. Walking on the street with her husband, Derviş is surprised when a woman violet seller appears from nowhere and approaches them to sell some flowers. They don’t buy any.[2] In 2023’s Taksim, there are young school age boys who approach couples on the street to sell red roses day and night. They extend the rose without saying much. It seems that they have mastered all of İstiklal’s backstreets and are very alert to municipal police. If you ask an address from these young boys, their directions would more or less like this: “Take the first left and take the fifth right.” They learn to count the streets as they learn to take cash and give change—the calculus of the streets.

            In February–March 1937, Suat Derviş encounters several Nazis in a restaurant cooking German dishes in Beyoğlu. With the military uniforms they wear in public and greeting each other by praising Hitler, Derviş gets angry at them since they act as if “they live in a colony.” A gramophone in the restaurant plays their national anthem, and soon after, Derviş leaves the restaurant.[3] After this uncomfortable lunch, Derviş wants to have a cup of coffee in one of the “hundreds of Viennese cafes in Beyoğlu.” She sees newspapers in German, Hungarian, Polish, and Czech and overhears conversations about politics or people reading the news while sipping their coffees.[4] She can’t really tell why these people ended up in İstanbul and whether they are political refugees or migrants.[5] A night in Beyoğlu ends when she sees a drunk woman singing a popular song in Germany in the mid-1930s, “Im Berlin an der Ecke von der Kaiserallee.”[6] I cannot help but think whether a version of the “Occupied City” exhibition by the İstanbul Research Institute could be done for İstanbul in the 1930s.

Deep into the night in a restaurant-club with live music, Suat Derviş hears different people competing to make the band to play Yanık Ömer, a song narrating the sorrows and joys of a male peasant returning from the First World War, or Harmandalı, a track to perform the zeybek folkdance. I am not sure if I heard these on İstiklal, but I was surely exposed to 1990s Turkish pop, either played live or on playback a lot. Perhaps entertainment patterns have changed over the decades, but the order of songs in the playlists remains almost the same every night. Everything reminds me that it is work for someone and commodified leisure for others. Of course, I also listened to the children trying to play Bella Ciao on their melodica for hours to collect a bit of cash. They only played the first five notes right. It could not really go further in the duration of the nine months that I have had in Beyoğlu. The streets are fast-paced and not very suitable to learn some things. Engaging with Derviş’s work on workplace injuries of women in the 1930s, Aslı Odman describes the bodies at work as “accelerating bodies.” İstiklal, as a sphere of circulation and of entertainment, makes me think about speed and acceleration while I witness children playing their melodicas, as well as many other modes of existing, like the feminization of municipal sanitation work and of minimum wage jobs.

Fig. 3. Cover of Suat Derviş’s book İstanbul’un Bir Gecesi (by author).

Inspired and encouraged by Suat Derviş, I have become more attentive to my surroundings and life in Beyoğlu. I could not take morning walks as regularly as I wanted, partly because İstiklal in the mornings is full of white trucks of almost identical size racing each other to deliver commodities to their stores of destination. Packs of frozen potatoes to be deep fried leave the refrigerated trucks. These packs are smaller than the sacks of potatoes that one would normally think of or bigger than the packs that one could find in grocery stores. Yes, the size of these industrial packs must be adjusted according to the industrial fryers. I continue walking. In front of almost every famous retailer, I see trucks stacked with all kinds of attire in very thin and unvacuumed bags. Do those stores really sell that much, to replenish their stocks every week or twice a week? I can’t really tell. Maybe they do, considering consumerism, credit cards, and installments.

I decide to warn the driver of another truck one morning who drove too close to me and stopped in front of a candy store, killing the engine before coming to a full stop. I see three young males—the driver is older than the other two. Two in the passenger seats run to the back of the truck and unload the supplies. The driver half opens the door, holds it with his left elbow, stretches his right arm to reach to a list by the front window, takes the list and places it on his lap, crosses off something, and then immediately takes the cigarette from behind his ear and lights it. The list is probably of places to make deliveries to on the same day. They speak Arabic, so I want to communicate with them, but I am not confident with my colloquial skills, as I was trained more in fusha. I am terrified to sound formal and, even worse, not to make sense. In no time, I start thinking about the wars and displacement. Do these three men have proper health insurance? How much do they make? They are in a rush that they do not seem to enjoy or own; it must be an undesired pace of work. I am in Tünel.

I am heading to Karaköy again. “Tourism is the new plantation.” This sentence stuck in my mind after someone in the classroom said it in the Caribbean history course that I took very early in my doctoral studies. I think about tourism as a new cash crop. İstiklal’s early morning rush becomes more understandable: İstiklal as an open-air tourism factory or plantation. My mind loves analogies and aphorisms. They have fueled my working-class soul: İstiklal’s mornings as a late moment in the sphere of circulation, İstiklal’s afternoons as a shopping mall to realize value. Let’s not get charmed by the world of commodities, and don’t forget “the hidden abode of capital” in “the abode of felicity.” Yet, this time there is more. I overhear over days and weeks that many residential buildings in and around Karaköy have been purchased by investors to be repurposed as hotels. I notice it has already happened in the back streets of İstiklal. The cruise ships anchoring at the Galata Port seem to confirm all this. I wonder whether some horn blasts I tended to associate with the city ferries belonged to the cruise ships. Capital, labor, and rent—one must think about them all at once.

Fig. 4. Topkapı Palace from Cihangir (by author).

With the constant police radios that I hear every day on the İstiklal Street, perhaps louder when the street is closed to public gatherings, I think about Fosforlu Cevriye. To be able to meet with her dissident lover who tries to live a low-profile life, Cevriye runs away from the police or often tries to act without drawing much attention. Nergis Ertürk points out that Derviş does not just simply merge detective books and love novels in her writing. Rather she investigates “the possibilities and promises of left literature under the state of exception” and “demystifies the technique of writing” by weaponizing or instrumentalizing “the realist novel and realist representation.” As I walk through the streets of Beyoğlu, I am thinking about Suat Derviş, literature-history-politics, Derviş’s İstiklal, and now, how much capitalism has changed over the decades or has remained the same.

Anıl Aşkın

1 May 2023, Monday

İstiklal, Beyoğlu

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[1] Pınar Öğünç, “Kalpli, Beyinli Bir Kayıt Cihazı,” in Çöken İstanbul Röportajlar (İstanbul: İthaki, 2021), 333–42.

[2] Suat Derviş, Çöken İstanbul Röportajlar (İstanbul: İthaki, 2021), 311.

[3] Suat Derviş, Çöken İstanbul Röportajlar, 319.

[4] Suat Derviş, Çöken İstanbul Röportajlar, 320.

[5] Suat Derviş, Çöken İstanbul Röportajlar, 321.

Tons of pages about Istanbul have been written by hundreds of authors, due to its unique character as a kaleidoscopic city between two continents, with an extremely rich past made of intertwined, different cultures. Today, the city is still a melting pot of people of different cultures, languages, and nationalities arriving from every corner of the world, according to current geo-political dynamics and hordes of tourists swarming the most iconic places. Istanbul is today projected towards the future, with neighborhoods dramatically affected by profound social and urban changes, but its vibrant, picturesque atmosphere is still present at almost every corner.

The main concept of Pamuk’s autobiographical book Istanbul. Memories and the City is melancholy. The book begins with a quotation from Ahmet Rasim that is the perfect summary of the entire book: “The beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy.” A deep feeling of melancholy and latent sadness is the fil rouge of the entire narration of Pamuk’s life in Istanbul. The “modernization” of Turkey was still in progress when the author was born in 1952 and during his childhood, spent between the districts of Nişantaşı and Cihangir: the image he depicts is that of a city inevitably suspended between old splendors and present decadence. In his account, the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent dramatic changes of Turkish society don’t seem water under the bridge but a very recent and perceivable thing.

Probably one of the most tangible effects of the social changes occurring in modern Turkey is the ubiquitous presence of building sites. On one hand, wealth, renewal, new cultural places: in Istanbul, it is common to see (with pleasure and optimism) historical palaces under restoration or recently repaired and given back to the community. On the other hand, the inexorable progress that makes the “old” vanish: today, passing by an urban void, one can imagine the previous presence of old houses that are now gone and feel that same sense of loss that young Pamuk felt when seeing that a traditional wooden house was destroyed by a fire.

But the strong fascination of the old buildings of Istanbul lies in the great number of human lives that have passed through those architectural spaces (but yes, also in the fact that they are now ruins—professional deformation). Pamuk himself explains his idea of Istanbul’s melancholy, hüzün in Turkish, which is strictly connected with the people that inhabit the city: “Now we begin to understand hüzün not as the melancholy of a solitary person but the black mood shared by millions of people together. What I am trying to explain is the hüzün of an entire city: of Istanbul.” p. 92

With this concept in mind, every corner of the city—and better if it’s in a back street, in a non-touristic neighborhood—is soon transformed into the perfect location for our hunt for the ancestral, melancholic soul of Istanbul. A hunt that is absolutely personal and subjective. So…if you have the chance to spend several months in Istanbul thanks to the ANAMED fellowship, go out and find your own vision! Your stay will soon turn into your romantic, curiosity-driven love story with the city.

“I love the overwhelming melancholy when I look at the walls of old apartment buildings and the dark surfaces of neglected, unpainted, fallen-down wooden mansions; only in Istanbul have I seen this texture, this shading. When I watch the black-and-white crowds rushing through the darkening streets of a winter’s evening, I feel a deep sense of fellowship, almost as if the night has cloaked our lives, our streets, our every belonging in a blanket of darkness, as if once we’re safe in our houses, our bedrooms, our beds, we can return to dreams of our long-gone riches, our legendary past.” p. 34–35

“The wooden mansions of my childhood and the smaller, more modest wooden houses in the city’s back streets were in a mesmerizing state of ruin. Poverty and neglect had ensured these houses were never painted, and the combination of age, dirt, and humidity slowly darkened the wood to give it that special color, that unique texture, so prevalent in the back neighborhoods that as a child I took the blackness to be original.” p. 37

“If the city speaks of defeat, destruction, deprivation, melancholy, and poverty, the Bosphorus sings of life, pleasure, and happiness. Istanbul draws its strength from the Bosphorus. But in earlier times, no one gave it much importance: They saw the Bosphorus as a waterway, a beauty spot, and, for the last two hundred years, a fine location for summer palaces.” p. 47–48

“What I enjoyed most about our family excursions to the Bosphorus was to see the traces everywhere of a sumptuous culture that had been influenced by the West without having lost its originality or vitality. To stand before the magnificent iron gates of a grand yalı bereft of its paint, to notice the sturdiness of another yalı’s moss-covered walls, to admire the shutters and fine woodwork of a third even more sumptuous yalı and to contemplate the judas trees on the hills rising high above it, to pass gardens heavily shaded by evergreens and centuries-old plane trees—even for a child, it was to know that a great civilization had stood here, and, from what they told me, people very much like us had once upon a time led a life extravagantly different from our own—leaving us who followed them feeling the poorer, weaker, and more provincial.” p. 52–53

“In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, John Ruskin devotes much of the chapter entitled “Memory” to the beauties of the picturesque, attributing the particular beauty of this sort of architecture (as opposed to that of carefully planned classical forms) to its “accidental” nature. So when he uses the word picturesque (“like a picture”) he is describing an architectural landscape that has, over time, become beautiful in a way never foreseen by its creators. For Ruskin, picturesque beauty rises out of details that emerge only after a building has been standing for hundreds of years, from the ivy, herbs, and grassy meadows that surround it, from the rocks in the distance, the clouds in the sky, and the choppy sea. So there is nothing picturesque about a new building, which demands to be seen on its own terms; it only becomes picturesque after history has endowed it with accidental beauty and granted us a fortuitous new perspective.” p. 254–55

“We might call this confused, hazy state melancholy, or perhaps we should call it by its Turkish name, hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private. Offering no clarity, veiling reality instead, hüzün brings us comfort, softening the view like the condensation on a window when a teakettle has been spouting steam on a winter’s day. Steamed-up windows make me feel hüzün, and I still love getting up and walking over to those windows to trace words on them with my finger. As I shape words and figures on the steamy window, the hüzün inside me dissipates and I can relax; after I have done all my writing and drawing, I can erase it all with the back of my hand and look outside.” p. 89

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* All the quotations are from Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul. Memories and the city, First Vintage International Edition, New York 2006 (translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely).

* All photographs are by the author.

Further reading on Istanbul, its daily life, and the history of its buildings:

De Amicis, Edmondo. Costantinople. 1st edition 1877. Richmond: Alma Classics, 2013.

Domaniç, Seda, and Sinan Sökmen., eds. Monday to Sunday Istanbul. Istanbul: Istanbul Tour Studio, 2022.

Farajova, Turan, and Serdar Kılıç. Istanbul Apartmanları. Hikayeleri ve Anıları ile Beyoğlu. Istanbul: Fabrika Yayıncılık, 2022.

Freely, John. Stamboul Sketches. Encounters in Old Istanbul. 1st edition 1974. Istanbul: Eland London, 2014.  

Freely, Brendan and John Freely. Galata, Pera, Beyoğlu. A Biography. Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 2013.

Özpetek, Ferzan. İstanbul Kırmızısı. Istanbul: Can Yayınları, 2016. Available in Turkish and Italian.

Photographic books:

With time, of course, İstiklal became an easier experience to navigate. Through generational knowledge passed on from other ANAMED fellows, I was introduced to a sprawl of beloved restaurants, who fed us delicious meals on the busiest of workdays. I made ventures myself. And previously disjointed side streets became entryways into experiences and conversations—with a tailor, who worked miracles for my jacket just in time for the winter rains; an owner of a stationary store, who was extra patient with my Turkish. I started to appreciate how İstiklal changed at different times of the day. I enjoyed the early walks, with the majority of shops just preparing to open, when the morning quiet allowed me to enjoy the street’s historic architecture. In the midst of evening crowds, the largest of AVMs and chain restaurants became unconscious pace setters, marking my place on the street.

Amidst all of that, I also met İstiklal’s cat population. Through my months at ANAMED, I encountered plump Instagram superstars, who enjoy human attention and supervise store entryways, mysterious lurkers vanishing into the midnight streets, as well as every cat in between. İstiklal’s feline abundance was no surprise in the famously cat-friendly city, but I became curious—looking for some personal inspiration—about how the cat, notorious for its love of quiet and personal space, navigates the busy street. As an archaeologist specializing in eastern Roman (Byzantine) cities and their relationship with the environment, I am trained to pick up on the organization of space—what are the materially visible and invisible “centers of gravity” or, as we call them, “activity areas,” for felines on İstiklal? How do cats use those spaces to manage their interactions with each other and human groups on the street?

Fig. 2. Fluffy Orange Cat: an İstiklal regular (Author)

My own presence on İstiklal is even more ephemeral than the cats’, limited to the nine months of the ANAMED fellowship. My work as a researcher dictates that I hover above the street with my laptop, perching myself in various libraries and cafes. The cats I meet, as well as the routines I notice, are inevitably different from those available to the people who work manual or service jobs, have different hours, or frequent other parts of the street. Nevertheless, I share some of my observations, categorizing cat activity areas into three categories: (i) walled-off green spaces, such as courtyards and gardens; (ii) abandoned structures; (iii) shopfronts and the street itself.

i. Courtyards and Gardens

Cats, contrary to their sometimes aloof reputation, are a social species in need of companionship. If not socialized to interact with humans from a young age, cats will be mistrustful and will prefer the company of other cats exclusively, forming feral cat colonies. Many cats living on İstiklal, in my experience, are feral or semi-feral: they recognize humans as a source of food but not as a source of affection or safety. I speculate that this happens because there aren’t many spaces available for a calm human-cat interaction, where felines aren’t overwhelmed by the speed and stimuli of the street.

While İstiklal itself lacks calm, green spaces available to the public, multiple institutions facing it, such as Galatasaray Lisesi or the Swedish Consulate, have fenced-off gardens, which are easily permeable by cats. Felines have caretakers within those institutions, who provide them with dry houses and access to food. Similarly, cats themselves make the best of their fluid situation, frequently hopping the fence around dinner time, scavenging around the nearby busy restaurants for better treats, and then tracking back when human attention gets too intense. In the mornings, the cats feel the most confident, walking through the empty streets, picking through left-over trash, and waiting for the other caretakers to bring them human food leftovers.

Fig. 3. Galatasaray Lisesi/Urban Cafe colony in the morning and in the evening (Author)

I made a special case of observing a cat colony which lives on the grounds of Galatasaray Lisesi and frequently ventures out for late-night or early-morning snacks in the area next to Urban Cafe (a frequent ANAMED haunt). I found it curious that cats do not retreat deep into the grounds but frequently human-watch, sitting on the fence. If the cat is sitting on the side of the fence further from the street, it is less interested in contact and might hiss if it is approached carelessly. If a cat is on the side of the fence closer to the street, it might accept a polite scratch between the eyes in exchange for a treat. Try it yourself!

ii. Abandoned Structures

Not all cats choose to stay with their colonies. Some of them don’t get along, while others start exploring and find better communities and food sources in other parts of the street. Male cats, if not neutered, will frequently fight for territory and venture out to other neighborhoods, migrating farther. Female cats, if also not neutered, will sometimes withdraw from the social life of the colony in order to give birth to their kittens in a safe and secluded space.

I first locked eyes with the Fluffy Black Cat at 3:00 am, when I opened my window for some fresh night air, and she was picking through the remains of someone’s dinner in a styrofoam box lying on the ground. I don't think either of us was prepared to share this moment with the other, so we both quickly retreated to our respective realms. I then started seeing Fluffy Black Cat in the mornings in front of an abandoned office structure right across from ANAMED. I was impressed by how skillfully she tore holes in the trash bags just as they were about to be picked up by the garbage truck, even as there were generous amounts of cat food made available next to the shopfronts nearby.

Fig. 4. Alleyway outside of my window; Abandoned structure, home to the Fluffy Black Kittens (Author)

Soon, the cat’s solitary presence became clearer—peeking from the second floor of the abandoned structure, there were Fluffy Black Kittens! Nearly perfect little voids with still-blue eyes, they were curiously gazing upon İstiklal’s crowds, attracting attention and camera clicks from passersby. I spent some time thinking about the kittens and their mom—what were they seeing? And how would the world look to you, if you were born in such a place? Fluffy Black Cat obviously did not trust any human presence and was both creative and desperate to find such a place to nest. How will those behaviors be passed on to her kittens?

iii. Shopfronts and the Street

These are the cats you know. They are the charming kebab thieves who will steal your warmed-up seat in a coffee shop. They will walk into a store meowing like they own the place and likely have multiple care-takers, who have food and warm beds ready for them. These cats are fully socialized to share spaces with humans and can calmly nap through the sounds and smells of İstiklal, as well as dozens of hands reaching down to give them a pet through the day. Sometimes I envy their social stamina.

Social cats frequently anchor themselves to a section of the street, where they have a series of shop fronts and restaurants that they frequent, zig-zagging between meals and naps in the sun. You might recognize the Fluffy Orange Cat, if you are ever in the area around EspressoLab Tünel, or, of course, Osman—a true İstiklal institution. Osman has been on İstiklal longer than the directors of most Archaeological Institutes where I have worked, or even the storefronts where he frequents. If you are lucky, you can catch him napping in the basket at Galleria Vitavien or welcoming customers at the nearby pharmacy.

Fig. 5. Osman: Napping and Demanding Snacks (Author)

Figure 2. Bronze Age weights in the shape of bulls, frogs, and sleeping ducks (ca. 2000–1000 BCE) in the Anatolian Weights and Measures Gallery.

These weights formed the basis of long-distance trade networks between Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Mediterranean for the exchange of resources and luxurious goods. As commodities changed hands, so did precious metals, such as gold and silver. Yet, completing any transaction was a painstaking process: traders had to test gold and silver by touchstones and weigh all the goods using a system of units: shekel, mina (or mana), and talent, corresponding to variously set values of grain and, later, silver.

Figure 3. Hellenistic period weights (third century BCE) in the Anatolian Weights and Measures Gallery.

Visiting this gallery, any careful enthusiast of human history would notice a time jump—to the Hellenistic period (Figure 3)—and wonder about the lack of weights from the earlier part of the first millennium BCE (i.e., the Iron Age). This was exactly my question to Güler in personal communication. His reply that “the situation in the gallery reflects a larger pattern; Iron Age weights are also underrepresented in the archaeological record” was not at all surprising to me as a specialist of this period, because, in these centuries, the world witnessed a major shift: the introduction of coinage and gradual change to monetary economies.

How do we tell the tale of this shift, then? Ancient sources give us some clues. Most commonly cited among them, The Histories of Herodotus (I.94.1) mention that “the Lydians … were the first of men, so far as we know, who struck and used coins of gold and silver; and also they were the first retail-traders.”[3] This reference obviously downplays the role of who came before the Lydians. After all, earlier weight systems, along with ancient tablets listing transactions that were valued in measures of silver, make it quite plain that pre-coinage people had an understanding of the concept of money.

Figure 4. Hacksilber hoard from Tel Dor, after Davis 2021.[4]

A growing body of evidence from Iron Age sites (eleventh–eighth centuries BCE) in the Levant and Syro-Anatolia has started to fill the gap in our understanding of this transition. These sites feature an intriguing class of finds:lumps or cut pieces of silver sealed in juglets (Figure 4) or sacks (of cloth or leather that have now perished). Known by the German term hacksilber,[5] such silver hoards are interpreted as residuals of former dealings. Imagine that a merchant cuts pieces off a silver ingot until its weight is correct for a specific transaction, then collects and weighs leftover silver pieces, packs them in a container, and seals it to guarantee the weight of the silver content, so that they can be used more easily in future transactions. Thus, hacksilber seems to have planted the seeds of the idea behind coinage by speeding up the process of exchange with the use of an official mark of authority, the seal.

Figure 5. An early type of Lydian coin with impressed punches on the reverse and plain striations on the obverse.

Given this long history, why do the Lydians receive the credit as the inventors of coinage? One reason lies in the definition of a coin that sets it apart from any earlier apparatus of payment. Coins were, as they are today, metal pieces with standardized weights whose values were approved by a governing body, and the Lydians seem to have produced coins, by this definition, the earliest.[6] Found in Lydia and its western Anatolian realm of mutual influence (particularly Ionia), these early coins followed the denominational fractions of a specific weight: 14.7 grams, known as the Lydo-Milesian standard.[7] As proof of their authorization, they all had impressed punches on the back (reverse) (Figure 5) and, later, impressed reliefs on the front (obverse), symbolizing the identity of the issuing city and ruling elite.

Figure 6. Gold and silver coins from the Lydian capital, Sardis. © Archaeological Explorations of Sardis.

The Lydians were also rightly acclaimed for being the first to use a bimetallic system in coinage (Figure 6), for their brilliance lay in manipulating the metal contents of their coins. The early generation of coins were struck of electrum, a natural alloy of gold and silver, a.k.a. “white gold.” Despite standardized weights, the metal ratio in these coins varied widely across western Anatolia and the Aegean. Lydian electrum coins, on the contrary, had relatively well-set ratios of 54% gold, 44% silver, and 2% copper—the latter to give coins a more goldish hue. This ratio, unmatched with that of the available natural electrum (73% gold: 27% silver) at the Lydian capital Sardis, demonstrates that they artificially alloyed gold and silver from both local and distant sources to produce their coins.[8] One of the striking consequences of debasing the gold ratio was that people made large profits out of their overvaluation.[9]

Figure 7. A trench in the refinery at Sardis with cupels for silver refining (left) and litharge and foils (right). © Archaeological Explorations of Sardis.

Eventually, Lydians became such experts of these chemical processes that they were able to refine gold and silver out of existing electrum. This process was fabulously documented during the excavations of the “refinery” at Sardis (Figure 7).[10] Later, Lydian kings minted pure silver and gold coins to further control their values. They are known as croeseids (Figure 6), named after the last Lydian king, to whom the English language owes the phrase “rich as Croesus.”

Figure 8. Plan and section of the Naos 2 shrine at the Artemision of Ephesus, after Kerschner and Konuk 2020, 117, fig. 12.

Figure 9. Selected electrum coins from the Artemision of Ephesus, after Kerschner and Konuk 2020, (left) 94, fig. 5, (right) 107, fig. 8.

I keep saying the earliest coins, but how far back in time do they go? Dating early coinage is notoriously difficult, because we rarely find them during excavations in association with other finds and architectural features. They are dispersed around the world in private collections and museums, including renowned ones such as the British Museum and the MET. Most of the time, therefore, numismatists study coins out of their archaeological context, based on comparative weights-denominations, countermarks, style of impressions, die-linking, etc. Exceptions to this exist, however. The earliest group of coins known thus far was dated via their in situ discovery in a very special context: the Artemision of Ephesus. Here, the builders of the second-phase shrine (Naos 2, Figure 8) deposited a jug of coins (Figures 1 and 9) at its foundations, seemingly to consecrate its construction. An excellent recent study of these coins’ archaeological contexts renewed their dating to the third quarter of the seventh century BCE (640–625 BCE).[11]

Figure 10. Electrum coin from the Artemision of Ephesus bearing the KUKALIM insignia associated with the Lydian king Alyattes. © Archaeological Explorations of Sardis.

So, when coins are found in such good contexts, they allow archaeologists to place important developments in time and space but also to scrutinize economic and political relationships. For instance, this Ephesus hoard comprised coins that bear the head of a lion next to the legend “KUKALIM” (Figures 9 (no. 107) and 10). This particular insignia, meaning “I am of Gyges” in the Lydian language, associates their minting with the Lydian king Alyattes, the father of Croesus and a descendant of Gyges, the first king of the Mermnad clan.[12] Another notable hoard of croeseids was found, in context, at Gordion, the capital of the Phrygians. Their date corresponds to the time when the Phrygians came under the rule of Lydia in the earlier sixth century BCE. These discoveries have come to signify the growing power and territories of the Lydian kings.

Figure 11. Nine silver croeseids discovered in 2021 in the palatial complex of Croesus at Sardis. © Archaeological Explorations of Sardis.

At their capital city, Sardis, however, finding Lydian coins in original contexts has been an extremely rare occasion. So, you can imagine how ecstatic we were to add another discovery to the list of only three incidents since 1922[13] during our 2021 field campaign, when nine silver croeseids came out of the ground. Their context is simply superb: on the destruction floor right in front of the monumental limestone terraces that encircled Croesus’ palatial complex, which was entirely burnt and destroyed by the Persians with the rest of the city in 547 BCE. The coins were next to the remains of a male individual, who seems to have possessed the coins in a pouch at the time of his death. Accompanied by a knife next to him and a large number of arrowheads, he must have died defending the king’s palace. After strenuous treatments from Sardis conservators, the coins’ weights matched the known Lydian denominations (1, 1/6, and 1/24), and two of them were of the rarest type: full staters. These coins, given their precise dating, now provide invaluable information for future studies of production technologies, circulation, iconography, and much more.

Figure 12. Animal impressions on coinage of the seventh and early sixth centuries BCE, top left: Miletus, top right 1, 2: Ephesus, bottom left: Phocaea, bottom right: Aegina.

Issued by Croesus, these coins portray a lion facing a bull on the obverse, but Croesus’ use of lion imagery has a deeper history. His ancestors had already borrowed its symbology from the Assyrian world, where it had long been associated with royal power. The same imagery signified the city of Miletus on their early coinage (Figure 12). Though the lion was not the standalone icon—from the onset, we observe the depiction of different animals on coins, with which the issuers echoed their historical-cultural identities: for instance, the stag in Ephesus, a seal in Phocaea, and a tortoise in Aegina (Figure 12).

Figure 13. The entrance to the Fauna and Currency Exhibition at AKMED and the lion poster welcoming visitors.

The choice of animals only diversified through time, and this is the theme of an ongoing exhibition at Koç University’s Suna ve İnan Kıraç Akdeniz Medeniyetleri Araştırma Merkezi (AKMED), Fauna and Currency.[14] Curators Oğuz Tekin and Arif Yacı designed this poster exhibition thematically by the types of animals impressed on currency, from ancient coins to the present day’s paper money. So it is no surprise that, upon entrance to the gallery, the lion poster welcomes you with the image of a Lydian coin (Figure 13). The posters then proceed with various animals of the air, the land, and the sea. A selected few offer a glimpse into their diversity: an eagle, goat, mouse, scorpion, crocodile, hippopotamus, crab, octopus, etc. Two posters advertise each of these animals. One provides brief biological facts and ancient references, while the other flashes the images of animals on currency with their dates and locational information.

Figure 14. Turtle imagery on a fourth century BCE coin from Aegina

In my opinion, these posters do a brilliant job on three accounts. First, explaining the historical and cultural significance of each animal in their own context of currency, the posters help you appreciate how they came to be on monies from significantly different time periods. Second, the printed images of coins magnify their scale remarkably, from their original fingernail-size (and sometimes much smaller) to the size of human head, so they allow you to observe every detail on coins. Finally, their high-quality gives a sense of liveliness, such that you feel you are about to pick up a giant 3-D version of the coin, such as this one from fourth century BCE Aegina (Figure 14).

Personally, I enjoyed the millennia-long significance of certain animals that people associated themselves with—for instance the lion, boar, stag, rooster/cock, and horse, which were already embossed on coins of the Ephesus hoard, and the swan and frog that adorned Bronze Age weights, which opened our tale of coinage to today’s money. So, I am leaving you with a few of their images from the gallery (Figures 15–30) to do the same.

Figure 15. Lion imagery on ancient coins.

Figure 16. Lion imagery on ancient Roman coins and on paper money of Tanzania.

Figure 17. Boar poster in the Fauna and Currency Exhibition at AKMED.

Figure 18. Boar imagery on ancient coins.

Figure 19. Boar imagery on ancient Roman coin and paper money of Papua New Guinea.

Figure 20. Boar imagery on modern coins.

Figure 21. Owl poster in the Fauna and Currency Exhibition at AKMED.

Figure 22. Owl imagery on fifth century BCE Athenian coin and on modern Greek Drahmi and Euro.

Figure 23. Rooster poster in the Fauna and Currency Exhibition at AKMED.

Figure 24. Rooster imagery on ancient coins.

Figure 25. Rhinoceros imagery on ancient and modern currency.

Figure 26. Rabbit poster in the Fauna and Currency Exhibition at AKMED.

Figure 27. Rabbit imagery on ancient and modern coins.

Figure 28. Frog poster in the Fauna and Currency Exhibition at AKMED.

Figure 29. Frog imagery on ancient coins.

Figure 30. Frog imagery on paper money of Madagascar.

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[1] M. Kerschner and K. Konuk, 2020, “Electrum Coins and Their Archaeological Context: The Case of the Artemision of Ephesus,” in White Gold: Studies in Electrum Coinage, eds. P. van Alfen and U. Wartenberg (New York: The American Numismatic Society), 83–190.

[2] On this visit, see also Dr Elisa Galardi’s post on the ANAMED blog.

[3] As the second-century philosopher Pollux discusses early coinage in his Onomasticon (9.3), he refers to Xenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570–478 BCE), who suggested that the Lydians were the first to mint coins, decades before Herodotus did. So the basis of Herodotus’ information may be Xenophanes himself (R. A. Mundell,  2002, “The Birth of Coinage,” Columbia University Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series, Paper #:0102-08.)

[4] G. Davis,  2021, “The Rise of Silver Coinage in the Ancient Mediterranean,” The Ancient Near East Today 9, no. 12.

[5] W. Fischer-Bossert,  2018, “Electrum Coinage of the 7th Century B.C,” In Second International Congress on the History of Money and Numismatics in the Mediterranean World, ed. O. Tekin (Antalya: Koç University Suna & İnan Kıraç Akdeniz Medeniyetleri Araştırma Merkezi), 15–23.

[6] U. Wartenberg,  2017, E. Millman,  2015, “The Importance of the Lydian Stater as the World’s First Coin.”

[7] A coin of this specific weight is called a stater. Its fractions are 1/3 (trite, the most common), 1/6 (sixth-stater, hekte), 1/12 (twelfth-stater, hemihekte), and all the way down to 1/96, which weighs only 0.15 grams. However, other standards existed simultaneously; e.g., the standards of Phocaea and Aegina were, respectively (and roughly), 16 and 18 g.

[8] N. D. Cahill,  et al., 2020, “Depletion Gilding of Lydian Electrum Coins and the Sources of Lydian Gold,” in White Gold: Studies in Electrum Coinage, eds. P. van Alfen and U. Wartenberg (New York: The American Numismatic Society), 291–336.

[9] J. H. Kroll,  2010, “The Coins of Sardis,” in The Lydians and Their World, ed. N. D. Cahill (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları), 143–56;P. van Alfen,  2020, “The Role of “The State” in Early Electrum Coinage,” in White Gold: Studies in Electrum Coinage, eds.P. van Alfen and U. Wartenberg (New York: The American Numismatic Society), 547–67.

[10] A. Ramage and P. Craddock, 2000, King Croesus’ Gold: Excavations at Sardis and the History of Gold Refining (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press); C. H. Greenewalt, Jr. and N. D. Cahill, 2010, “Gold and Silver Refining at Sardis,” in The Lydians and Their World, ed. N. D. Cahill (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Yayınları), 134–41.

[11] Kerschner and Konuk 2020, ibid.

[12] A. Dale,  2015, “WALWET and KUKALIM. Lydian Coin Legends, Dynastic Succession, and the Chronology of Mermnad Kings,” Kadmos 54 no. 1/2: 151–66.

[13] These include one hoard with some thirty gold croeseids in a jug (T. L. Shear, 1922, “Sixth Preliminary Report on the American Excavations at Sardes in Asia Minor,” American Journal of Archaeology 26: 389–409), two coins found near the fortification wall within its destruction debris, together with the skeletal remains of a soldier, apparently a casualty of the city’s sack by the Persians (N. D. Cahill and J. H. Kroll, 2005, “New Archaic Coin Finds at Sardis,” American Journal of Archaeology 109: 589–617), and three more coins on the Acropolis from a Persian looter’s trench of perhaps a cultic building dedicated to Artemis (N. D. Cahill, et al. 2020, ibid.).

In the early hours of November 23, 2022, we, ANAMED fellows, woke up at the shaking of an earthquake. Not long after that, the first message vibrated my mobile phone. More and more messages would follow, as we immediately rushed to check on each other and calm down the ones most upset by this violent, uncontrollable shaking of the earth. The earthquake that had given us such an unpleasant early morning had a magnitude of 6.0 according to the Observatory of Boğaziçi University; its epicentre was in the Düzce Gölyaka area, some 200 km away from Istanbul, and its depth was estimated at 10.6 km from the surface. A total of 93 people were injured, and two died under conditions related to the earthquake: one of a fear-induced heart attack and the other while trying to climb down a staircase to exit the building where the earthquake had found him. The severity of this shake was such that a special page is dedicated to it in Vikipedi, the Turkish-language version of Wikipedia (https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_D%C3%BCzce_depremi).

Back then, none of us could have imagined that a much worse sequence of earthquakes would hit the southern provinces of Turkey and northern Syria just a couple of months later in the early hours of February 6, 2023. This time, it was Laura, a friend from Greece, who texted me to see if everything was OK, alerted by reports on the news. The Turkey-Syria earthquake, as it would come to be known, had a magnitude of 7.8 and caused a hecatomb of victims—men, women, and children sleeping peacefully in their houses. It will be long before affected local societies are able to mend their wounds. Even for those of us who did not wake up in fear of that distant tremble, it is still hard to cope with the shock caused by footage from the ground and the news conveying the number of dead. This earthquake, too, found its way to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkey%E2%80%93Syria_earthquake).

I take it as a “normal” human reaction that both earthquakes were documented in this online encyclopaedia of human experience and knowledge. Earthquakes can be so destructive that they leave an indelible mark not only on people who experience them directly but even on future generations. The historical record attests to this, as in the case of an Ottoman Greek, Anastassia Andreadake, from the village of Lithri (present-day Ildır), not that far from Smyrna/Izmir (Folder on Lithri, Oral Tradition Archive, Centre for Asia Minor Studies, p. 156–57). Interviewed as late as 1961 in Greece, where she resettled after the Exchange of Populations, she recollected not her own memories of an 1882 earthquake that had hit her native village but the memories of older people who—unlike her—experienced the shaking first-hand. Such was the impression that their memories of the quake made on her that her own turbulent and traumatic life as a refugee did not make their words fade away. Anastassia started her narration as such: “I was not born in 1882 but I heard from the old ones that all houses collapsed. Our village was ruined. Many died and many more were injured.” We also learn from her that it was not long before aid came to their village. The Ottoman government in the capital sent a representative with provisions. “Dressed in gold,” he left the hard-hit villagers in awe. Here is what they said to Anastassia:

And the Turks back in our earthquakes sent us aid from Constantinople. There came a grand one. He was dressed in gold. He brought along with him timber so that we could build shacks, tents, medication and food. And he told us, “Don’t lose hope. The Sultan is committed to you. Say altogether, ‘Long live the Sultan.’” And we said, “‘Long live the Sultan.’”

Greece, too, out of solidarity with its neighbour but also with a population with which it felt strongly connected, sent men, provisions, and money:

The news of the calamity travelled to the end of the world. From Greece, there came military officers who were doctors and nurses. To tend to the people, they brought with them food, medication, bandages, tents, and they also left a lot of money when they left so that we could build our school. The money was a lot. And there was even a left over. With that we built the fountain of our village. [..] We too though gave [money] for the Greek School. It made my father happy to give some [money] to help at such moments.

Thanks to Anastassia Andreadake, we can get a closer look at responses to earthquakes in the late nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. But aid translated in medical personnel, material, and financial provisions from the central government and abroad was not the only response to earthquakes back then. An article by Amit Bein documents how Ottoman society changed its understanding of earthquakes in the aftermath of one that hit the Marmara region hard in 1894 (“The Istanbul Earthquake of 1894 and Science in the Late Ottoman Empire,” Middle Eastern Studies, 44, no. 6 (2008): 909–24).  

Beit gives the following description of this shaking of the earth so close to the capital:

The most devastating earthquake in more than a century hit the Marmara region and the Ottoman capital shortly after noon on 10 July 1894. The effects of the tremor were felt over a radius of more than 400 kilometres, with aftershocks following both on the same day and again twice in the following week. Damage was extensive throughout the capital, but particularly in the historic city, where most of the population and centres of government were concentrated. Many minarets, church towers, synagogues, government offices and private dwellings crumbled or were severely damaged. A significant portion of the Grand Bazaar collapsed. Water systems were disrupted and all but one telegraph lines, to Russia, were damaged. The Reuter’s news agency reported from the scene that ‘there is scarcely a street in the city which does not show signs of the destructive effects of the earthquake’. The Ottoman government later estimated that more than 10,000 buildings were damaged by the seismic disturbances. Official figures put the number of dead and injured in the hundreds, but contemporaries and later historians agreed that the true number was most likely in the thousands. (p. 916)

Fig 2. Damage caused by the earthquake in 1894 to the Grand Bazaar (Source: Ataturk Library, IBB, İstanbul Tarihi website: https://istanbultarihi.ist/396-a-seismic-cityscape-earthquakes-in-istanbuls-history).

The earthquake seems to have produced the same reaction across the city’s multi-ethnic population, one sanctioning greater devotion. Halide Edib (Adıvar) recollected in her memoirs how she, then a ten-year-old girl, and other members of her family felt the need to connect deeper with God. Muslims on the streets would, from time to time, groan “Allah, Allah.” Armenians were reported to group together in open-air public spaces to pray and offer sacrifices to God. Greek women were seen “barely dressed, walking down the street holding crucifixes or images of the Virgin while beseeching the heavens and crying aloud.” (p. 917)  

Yet, if the streets of the Ottoman capital became scenes of devout expression linked to the irrational fear that earthquakes bring about, the Ottoman press served a different purpose. Materialist and positivist Ottoman Muslim intellectuals found in it a medium to impress a rational understanding of earthquakes among the people. Thanks to their writings, Bein argues, in the early twentieth century, hardly anyone among the educated in the Ottoman Empire would question the then-known scientific explanations of seismic activity.

In the aftermath of the Turkey-Syria earthquake, a Turkish friend of mine who came to the assistance of a friend of his who lost his wife in the rubble told me how he flirted with the idea of becoming more pious. Although a fully rational university professor, desolation made him look for metaphysical ways to deal with the tremor in his soul that that other tremor had caused. I really felt for him… I could see how looking for one you care for in the rubble in the earthquake-hit south could be such an overwhelming experience.

It depicts the life and death of the famous Turkish poet, playwright, and novelist Nâzım Hikmet (1902–1963). In a semi-biographical fashion, Burak painted several key episodes and aspects of Hikmet’s eventful life: his early upbringing in a wealthy Ottoman family in Istanbul (top right); the almost fifteen years he spent in prisons across Turkey, a result of his communist sympathies (left); his innovative free-verse poetry, scribbled on the prison walls and bursting from his mind (top left); and, his enduring impact on new generations of protesters (right center). Instead of reiterating Hikmet’s biographical facts here—excellent biographies and introductions are available in English[1]—I want to use this blog post as an opportunity to follow some of the poet’s steps in Istanbul, the city he loved so much and missed so dearly while he was in prison, and later, during his exile in Russia and Bulgaria.[2] I hope that, by tracing Nâzım Hikmet’s Istanbul through poetry and photographs, some well-trodden places in the city may acquire new poetic layers.[3]

Our Nâzım-walk begins on Beyazit Square, the spacious stepped plaza with grey cobblestones in front of the elaborate gate to Istanbul University. Standing on the square, we see people moving in all directions, on their way to attend lectures, to go shopping in the Grand Bazaar, or to be on time for prayer at the nearby Beyazit Camii. Flocks of pigeons also cross the open space, frightened by the constant stream of traffic on the adjacent Ordu Caddesi or attracted by generous tourists sharing their simit. Nowadays, nothing on Beyazit Square reminds one of the tragedy that happened here approximately sixty years ago. A poem by Nâzım Hikmet, titled In Beyazit Square, however, vividly remembers what occurred:  

In Beyazit Square 

A dead man lies,

   a youth of nineteen years,

   in the sun by day,

   under the stars by night,

   in Istanbul, in Beyazit Square.

A dead man lies,

   in one hand a notebook,

   in one hand his dream gone

   before it began, in April 1960,

   in Istanbul, in Beyazit Square.

A dead man lies

   shot

   a bullet-wound

   like a red carnation open on his forehead,

   in Istanbul, in Beyazit Square.

A dead man will lie,

   his blood seeping into the earth

   until my country comes with arms and freedom songs

                        and takes

                                    the great square

                                               by force.

(Original title: Beyazıt Meydanı'ndaki Ölü , transl. by Ruth Christie, from Beyond the Walls, p. 218)[4]

Nâzım wrote this poem in May 1960 as a reaction to the student protests of the so-called “28–29 April Events” (28–29 Nisan Olayları) that took place in Istanbul and Ankara in April of that year. While socio-political unrest had already been building in Turkey for some time—not least because of a strong devaluation of the Turkish Lira and the related rise in commodity prices—these protests were particularly targeted at the authoritarian and repressive rule of the center-right Democrat Party (DP) which ruled in Turkey between 1950 and 1960. The Republican People's Party (CHP), forming the political opposition, was increasingly curtailed by bans on political gatherings, and İsmet İnönü, the party’s leader, was obstructed and even attacked while campaigning. The immediate cause of the protests was the installation of the so-called Committee of Inquest (Tahkikat Komisyonu), which effectively acted as a political court that imprisoned political opponents. During the Istanbul protests on Beyazit Square, the police used excessive violence against the protesting crowd. Besides hundreds of injured students and staff members, a 19-year-old student in Forestry Studies, Turan Emeksiz, was shot in the head and killed.

On the central panel of Burak’s painting, the death of Nâzım Hikmet is situated on Beyazit Square, purposefully conflating the poet’s death with that of his poem’s subject, Turan Emeksiz. This poetic license—Hikmet was not actually killed on the streets but died from a heart attack in Moscow—makes sense: it is likely that Nâzım wrote his poem because he felt a strong affinity with the much younger Turan. The painted metamorphosis and the triptych composition both add to the poem’s theme of resurrection, further evoking its suggestion that each generation produces new heroes, new voices against oppression and social injustice. Years before the horrible events of April 1960, Nâzım had already written about this theme in the magnificent epic poem about Sheikh Bedreddin, a fifteenth-century ‘socialist’ peasant in western Anatolia, whose short-lived revolt was ultimately violently suppressed by the Sultan—staged by Hikmet as a preview of the twentieth-century social revolts he so much supported (“When we say Bedreddin will come again we are saying that his words, his eyes, his breath, will come again through our midst”).

While contemplating these prophetic words, we take Ordu Caddesi and walk to Sultanahmet Square. On the southern side of that square, you can see an imposing building that is strikingly yellow. Between 1938 and 1939, and again in 1950, Nâzım was imprisoned here. The Sultanahmet Jail, also known as the Dersaadet Cinayet Tevkifhanesi (Dersaadet Murder Jail), was one of the most notorious prisons of the city, particularly used to imprison writers, journalists, intellectuals, and artists that were considered political dissidents. Orhan Kemal, a good friend of Nâzım and another influential Turkish author, also spent time behind bars here.[5] Nowadays, the building has been repurposed to accommodate the wealthy, serving as the luxurious environs of the Four Seasons Hotel. The hotel proudly advertises its former use as a prison, exclaiming on their website that “It's not every day you get to stay in a century-old Turkish prison, refurbished for luxury living.” Nâzım Hikmet wrote several poems during his imprisonment here; the following one was written in 1939. I fantasized about reciting it out loud to hotel guests entering and leaving the building or writing it as graffiti on those tempting yellow walls:

In Istanbul, in Tevkifane Prison Yard

In Istanbul, in Tevkifane prison yard,

A sunny winter’s day after the rain,

Clouds, red roof tiles, walls and my face

         Trembling in the puddles on the ground.

I am so brave in my spirit, so cowardly,

Whatever there is, strong or weak,

         I carry it all,

I thought of the world, my country, and you…

(Original title: İstanbul'da, Tevkifane avlusunda, transl. by Richard McKane, from Beyond the Walls, p. 97)

From the Sultanahmet Prison, we continue our tour, walking across Sultanahmet Square, passing the Hagia Sofia, and then turning right to Gülhane Park, behind Topkapı Sarayı. For once, you are allowed to ignore all these well-known touristic attractions! Instead, go into the park and try to find a walnut tree like the one on the picture. Then read the following poem:

The Walnut Tree

My head is a foaming cloud, inside and outside I’m the sea.

I am a walnut tree in Gülhane Park,

an old walnut tree with knots and scars.

You don’t know this and the police don’t either.

I am a walnut tree in Gülhane Park.

My leaves sparkle like fish in water,

my leaves flutter like silk handkerchiefs.

Break one off, my darling, and wipe your tears.

My leaves are my hands—I have a hundred thousand hands.

Istanbul I touch you with a hundred thousand hands.

My leaves are my eyes, and I am shocked at what I see.

I look at you, Istanbul, with a hundred thousand eyes,

And my leaves beat, beat with a hundred thousand hearts.

I am a walnut tree in Gülhane Park.

You don’t know this and the police don’t either. 

 (original title: Ceviz Ağacı, transl. by Richard McKane, from Beyond the Walls, p. 197)

This popular poem was written while Nâzım traveled to Balçık (Bulgaria), where he stayed in exile. In some sense, it evokes a feeling of absence, the fate of a fugitive in hiding; the author seems to yearn for his Istanbul roots—a recurrent theme in his later work, especially. A romantic but unverified story goes that Nâzım based the poem on a memory of Gülhane Park from several years before, when he was already sought after by the police. While waiting in the park to meet secretly with his former lover Piraye, he witnessed two cops approaching in the distance, who had been tipped off by an untrustworthy ‘friend.’ Not knowing where to run, Nâzım allegedly decided to climb the nearest walnut tree and hid among its foliage. From there, he saw how the cops, but also Piraye, were looking for him—in vain. Many Turkish people know The Walnut Tree by heart, not in the least through rock musician Cem Karaca’s famous interpretation. Like Nâzım himself, it has become a symbol of resistance. The poem acquired further prominence during the 2013 Istanbul Gezi Park protests, when it featured on the banners and in speeches of the defenders of the park and its trees.[6] As is well known, this peaceful sit-in ended in an extremely violent eviction by the police, killing 22 people and injuring thousands. Returning from Fatih back to ANAMED, you might want to take a little detour and consider Gezi Park the last stop of this poetic resistance walk.

My leaves are my eyes, and I am shocked at what I see. From Bedreddin to Turan Emeksiz to Gezi. Looking at Istanbul through his poems and through the canvas of Burak’s painting, Hikmet would probably still be shocked at what he saw today.

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[1] Edward Timms and Saime Göksü, Romantic Communist: the life and Work of Nâzım Hikmet (London: Hurst, 1999).

[2] Some caveats are in place here: I am not a literary scholar, let alone a specialist on the work of Hikmet. I merely write about this subject as a passionate reader of his poetry. Furthermore, I realize many more places and poems could have been included here. Among these, I should definitely mention the Nâzım Hikmet Kültür Merkezi in Kadıköy, which has a great bookstore and a lovely tea garden.    

[3] Poetry schmoetry, what about the white cat in the painting?! It seems that Burak painted a so-called Van cat (Van kedisi), which are known for their fluffy white fur and heterochromic eyes; the cute specimen in the painting has a blue and a yellow eye. Hikmet wrote about the presence of cats in the prisons where he stayed (see, for example, the poem Lodos,which was written in Bursa prison), but most likely the painted cat is a reference to the third poem Hikmet ever wrote, Samiye’nin Kedisi, an ode to the old and scruffy cat of his sister Samiye.

[4] I will provide several citations from Hikmet’s work, in English translation. Although I believe in Robert Frost’s dictum that poetry is what gets lost in translation, I think Hikmet’s poetry deserves to be read by non-Turkish readers also. Fortunately, excellent translations are available; I quote primarily from the 2002 volume Nâzım Hikmet. Beyond the Walls. Selected Poems, with translations by Ruth Christie, Richard McKane, and Talât Sait Halman, the latter of whose insightful introduction I also used.   

[5] Orhan Kemal and Nâzım Hikmet did not spend time together in this prison. They had become friends in the Bursa Prison, where they stayed between 1940 and 1943. Kemal’s moving memoir In Jail with Nâzım Hikmet (2012, translated by Bengisu Rona) gives a detailed account of these early years. The small but charming Orhan Kemal Museum in Cihangir, not far from ANAMED, also contains some pictures and letters attesting to their friendship.  

I look for marks left by the artist’s tools, traces of color and gilding, cracks and chipping caused by the removal or renewal of original frames, and other damage caused by repeated touching. The amount of information I can evince from a close inspection of a specific work is unpredictable. Sometimes the relief is “eloquent” about its past life, other times it is “reserved,” and I can add little to what is already obvious. Nevertheless, there are two pieces of information that I can always extrapolate from the object: its weight and size. The artifact’s measurements are indeed the very first data of which I take note. My approach to the object begins with the simple, and by now automatic, action of measuring with the aid of a soft measuring tape and a small electronic scale (Fig. 1). Only after entering these numbers in my database do I feel ready to lay my eyes and gloved hands on the object for close inspection.

Until recently, I have never reflected upon this routine nor on the significance of these numbers for my research. There is surely a comforting and practical aspect to it. In contrast, other evidence requires more thinking and scrutiny; measurements are objective facts for which little interpretation is involved. 10.7 cm is 10.7 cm, full stop. Moreover, knowing these numbers makes me feel a step closer to understanding the work at which I am looking and closer to knowing its hidden secrets. Finally, measurements allow for easy comparisons across the corpus: Object A is as wide and thick as object B, but C’s weight is greater than D’s.

However, a recent visit to the Pera Museum’s Anatolian Weights and Measures made me think more critically about this aspect of my work.

Fig. 2

On March 2, 2023, a group of ANAMED fellows, joined by a few other researchers from nearby institutes, gathered at the doors of the Pera Museum to be welcomed by Yavuz Selim Güler, collection supervisor of the Anatolian Weights and Measures gallery of the Museum. An old friend of mine, Yavuz generously agreed to lead us through the Weights and Measures exhibition and answer our many questions (Fig. 2).⁠[1] The collection is part of the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation and comprises artifacts from a wide chronological spectrum from the Assyrian to the late Ottoman periods. Its focus is on the history of metrology, a still-understudied aspect of human culture. The display of the recently renovated gallery is modern and dynamic, inviting visitors to circumambulate the space and gaze at the pleasantly arranged objects.⁠[2] Warm red and purple signal to the visitor the transition from one thematic session to the next, while interactive screens, photographs, and images complement the display cases and provide further context to imagine the exhibited items in their actual use. While I leave to curious readers the pleasure of discovering the specifics of the gallery with an in-person visit, in the following I will share a few thoughts triggered by the tour and Yavuz’s explanations.

Fig. 3

One aspect that struck me while wandering around the first half of the exhibition is the range in the measuring tools’ iconographies. I expected weights to come in geometrical forms, but instead, I found weights could assume a variety of shapes. Consider, for instance, the small Assyrian weights carved or molded in the form of ducks, frogs, and bovine heads (Fig. 3) or the Hellenistic and Byzantine examples in the shape of mythological and imperial figures, such as the finely worked bronze bust of Herakles (Fig. 4).⁠ Curious, also, are the Roman weights in the shape of a giant astragalus, a bone found in the heel of many mammals. In their own ways, these different figures seem to charge the weights with connotations that surpass their practical purpose. The zoomorphic Assyrian weights, for instance, had also a prophylactic function, for they could be worn on the body as amulets or function as seals. Similarly, the astragalus has been traditionally associated with good luck and the occult, while mythic and imperial figures are evocative of superhuman powers. The exhibition further suggests a transcendental connotation of weight by bringing to the viewer’s attention the Egyptian and Byzantine belief in the significance of weighing in the afterlife (Fig. 5). Whereas in the Egyptian tradition, the goddess Maat would weigh the deceased’s heart against the Feather of Truth to decide the destiny of the dead person, in the Byzantine belief system, the soul would be weighed to determine whether the deceased was worthy of Heaven.

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

The variety of the weights’ iconographies is paired with an equally diverse range of materials. Throughout history, weights have been crafted in marble and semi-precious stones, such as hematite and agate, in bronze alloys and brass, lead, and glass. Besides the question of material availability and technological possibilities, two principles seem to have informed a material choice, namely durability and replaceability. Bronze, for instance, can endure many manipulations without significant alterations in mass, in contrast to softer materials that would be quickly worn down and change the weight’s heaviness. Glass, on the contrary, is relatively fragile but easy to replace if it becomes broken or chipped. These considerations bring to light one aspect of measures of which—in the era of the standard metric system and of synthetic, “indestructible” materials—we are often forgetful: their inclination to impreciseness. The matter that constitutes the tools that materialize a specific weight or length shrinks, erodes, and wears down over time, challenging the absolute value it supposedly represents. The history of metrology is the history of a battle between the ideal and the material.[3]

The exhibition comments on this point with the last exhibit of the weights section, Le Grand K2 by Turkish artist Avşar Gürpınar. Inspired by the Pera Museum’s Weights and Measures collection, Le Grand K2 is a barite stone carved down to the weight of one kilogram (Fig. 6). As the explicatory panel clarifies, with this piece the artist wished to criticize the International Bureau of Weights and Measures’ decision in 2018 to institute a mathematical formula as the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK). The formula replaced a physical cylinder that had served as the standard for the making of weights across the world since 1889. Over time, the original IPK had lost 50 micrograms—the equivalent weight of a grain of salt. The formula that replaced the physical object is the ultimate attempt of scientific measure to triumph over matter by divorcing the ideal measurement from the inevitable decay of the material world. Avşar Gürpınar’s artwork, however, invites the viewers to reflect upon the adequacy of an absolute value to weigh “our flexible and variable world, imperfect in every way, full of faults and margins of error,” a world where “every solid thing is evaporating.”[4]

Fig. 6

Returning to my measuring routine, the visit to the Pera Museum reminded me that measures are abstract and, to some degree, unreliable. More importantly, however, it made me reflect upon their meaning for me and my research. Do these abstract values truly serve my purpose, my attempt to envision the interaction between artworks and human bodies? Or should I instead, following Avşar Gürpınar’s exhortation, think of measures in terms of something more material that better reflects the world from, in, and for which the objects were made? I could, for instance, say that X is the size of the palm of an adult hand and that Y is as heavy as a shelled walnut. Sure, hands and shelled nuts come in different sizes, but the approximation may be more evocative than a precise digit, for it brings the artifact closer to us. The object on the scale or next to the measuring tape yields an absolute number, but it is only when I hold it in my hands that I can grasp what its weight and size meant for a human body.

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[1] Yavuz and I first met at ANAMED’s Cappadocia in Context Summer Program in 2019.

[2] The gallery reopened in November 2021.

[3] My thinking on this and other themes presented in this short essay was inspired by Emanuele Lugli’s publication The Making of Measure and the Promise of Sameness (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019).

Last year, the term “polycrisis” received new attention in the news and at the World Economic Forum as a label to describe the overlapping crises—natural disasters, wars, mass migrations, energy crises, food shortages, and inflation—that define our present moment. The term encompasses the phenomenon of multiple overlapping crises on a global scale, often with compounding overall effects on an unprecedented scale (“such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part;” Tooze 2022). Other neologisms include permacrisis (an extended period of instability and insecurity), multicrisis, tripledemic, and megathreat.  In terms of stress, risk mitigation, and coping, some proponents of polycrisis take a despondent tone, suggesting that we brace for looming decline as things will only become more precarious.

However, this repetition and overlapping of multiple crises on broad and local scales is nothing new, not least for the Mediterranean. There is no shortage of mainstream books on collapse, from the Bronze Age to the Maya to the Roman Empire. Even the term polycrisis has been around for decades. I disagree with the uncritical uses of polycrisis that suggest “the idea that global crises have somehow become more complex, intricate, and unsolvable today than in past decades” (Il Post). As a researcher of the turbulent history of the Late Antique Mediterranean, it's strange to encounter discussions about polycrisis describing today’s overlapping events as a new phenomenon, without mention of the perpetual intersecting of similar events in well-studied historical periods. Historians and archaeologists offer information on how communities coped, adapted, renegotiated, and also abandoned settlements throughout similarly interwoven upheavals in the past. Polycrisis can be a useful term to frame how we look at the crises (both local and global) that piled up in Late Antiquity.

While polycrisis will help contextualise the agency of each complex, settlement, micro-region, etc. in examining localized stressors and broader events, another term, resilience, can help us visualize how communities reacted to disasters clashing together around them. Resilience is defined here as the “capacity of systems to absorb disturbance while retaining processes, structures, and functions” (Walker et al. 2004). Models for resilience theory include phases like growth/exploitation, conservation, destructive event, and reorganizing. Scale, frequency, and other factors contribute to the complexity of cataclysmic events in the framework of resilience theory, and resilience is more than this capacity to absorb shocks. We are familiar with the process: over the last three years, the pandemic has caused academic events to adapt to virtual and hybrid attendance. This pandemic-induced innovation has allowed me to attend previously inaccessible lectures and conferences on the history and archaeology of the Justinianic plague, migration and forced mobility, and disasters, even as similar types of events happen in real time. As the initial weeks of the pandemic turned into months and years, notes of pride on how collaborative and caring we could be transformed into fear, anger, confusion, cynicism, denial, frustration, and exhaustion.

In my project on the archaeology of church complexes in the eastern Mediterranean, I’m using resilience theory to look at the variety of responses to overlapping crises over four centuries. The overlapping crises include the Justinianic plague, natural disasters, wars and political instability amidst environmental periods of aridity and cooler temperatures (Late Antique Little Ice Age), and unusual periods of increased seismic activity (Early Byzantine Tectonic Paroxysm, fourth–sixth centuries CE). With a focus on the changing arrangement of churches, my interest is in what I’ve called post-upheaval activity, or post-destruction industry. By this I mean, how was church space adapted and renegotiated? This can manifest in some unexpected combinations. For example, I have found flour mills, bakeries, olive presses, and copper smelting facilities added to the annexes and atria of Late Antique churches. When these churches continue to be used liturgically for religious services and baptisms, alongside their new agricultural and industrial activity, I see it as one of the more interesting and clear examples of the church’s involvement in production.

The variety in types of post-upheaval activity in churches that all experienced the same upheaval (such as the mid-seventh century CE Arab invasions in Cyprus) demonstrate the importance of bearing local, small-scale agency in mind. Each church’s bishop, clergy, or monks appear to have had their own choices in reacting, including storing damaged architectural material and continuing liturgical practices, removing additional annex activity and creating a smaller church, or abandoning the site entirely to relocate and build a new church. Both in the original phases of a church’s use and later post-upheaval choices, the presence of economic and mercantile archaeological material is important.

Similarly, at ANAMED, there have been varying intersections of what has affected each of us on personal, communal, or societal levels over the last few months. Dealing with a nut allergy while living in Turkey is a too-frequent situation, but on an individual level, rather than the communal academic stressors and the general chaos of Istiklal Caddesi. Despite criticisms of the concept of “polycrisis,” it has also been used as a framework for policymaking and future solutions (UNICEF). Although it is not as simple to assign a single new term to express widespread unease and complexity (though it is now used for the new “apocalyptic angst”[Kluth]), there are solutions, vaccines, calls for environmental action, etc. Criticisms of the term advise that rather than falling apart under the unease, we should pick a crisis and address it as best as possible. This modern-day form of resilience can be informed by historical reactions to similar crises. My academic spheres have reacted with support for the varying upheavals of recent years, funding displaced scholars from Ukraine, providing links for donations after natural disasters, and compiling information resources. On a local scale, since September there have been numerous events in Istanbul throughout which the ANAMED fellows have gathered and supported one another. Most recently, this has included gathering and sending resources and donations for earthquake relief. This most recent form of helping recovery after a single crisis as best as we can is an admirable effort on the part of ANAMED. Links for information and places to donate to the earthquake relief for southeastern Turkey can be found here:

AHBAP (https://ahbap.org/)

UN Refugee Network (https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/international-federation-red-cross-red-crescent-societies.html)

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (https://donation.ifrc.org/?campaign=3f5f91aa-e8da-e911-80e2-0050560100a8)

AFAD (https://www.afad.gov.tr/)

For many people, the first type of reconstruction that might come to mind is that of archaeological sites. One famous example in western Anatolia is the reconstructed façade of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus. Other types of reconstructions range from drawings and videos to physical constructions that are used for experimental archaeology. The development of digital technologies also facilitates new avenues for archaeological reconstruction. For example, “The Curious Case of Çatalhöyük” exhibit—which was presented in the ANAMED gallery from June 2017 to February 2018—included an immersive virtual reconstruction that allowed visitors to experience what a Neolithic building might have looked like while it was in use.

The Istanbul Archaeology Museum has made extensive use of reconstruction during its recent renovations. Galleries are decorated with scenes such as a Mycenaean wanax (king) holding court in his throne room or Osman Hamdi Bey and his team removing sarcophagi from the necropolis of Sidon. Reconstructions are especially prevalent in the Troy gallery and its associated exhibit on archaeological methods and are used to tell multiple intersecting stories about the site and about the history of archaeological research in Anatolia.

Reconstructing Excavation

The history of excavation at Troy is referenced throughout the exhibit, along with information on a variety of archaeological methods. This presentation of archaeology at the Museum employs multiple types of reconstruction.

The most prominent is a representation of the site’s stratigraphy that dominates the center of the exhibit hall. This model and its associated text teach visitors about the study of stratigraphy—the layers of sediment, stone, artifacts, etc. that accumulate over time and allow us to reconstruct the phases of a site’s history—which is one of the foundational concepts of scientific archaeology. Simultaneously, the uneven lighting that leaves parts of the model in shadow gives it an almost mystical quality.

Figure 2. The impressive model of a stratigraphic section from Troy has an immediate impact on a visitor to the gallery (photo by author).

In a back room of the gallery, an exhibit on archaeological methods also makes extensive use of reconstruction. As one enters, the left side of the room is dominated by a reconstruction of an excavation area, combining a physical model on the floor with a video of actors carrying out day-to-day activities. The room further includes a viewing area for a video that shows the stages of excavating an object and preparing it for display in a museum, as well as scientific dating methods including carbon-14 and dendrochronology (a dating method based on tree rings). In a time where pop culture depictions of archaeology are often sensationalized or disparaging, reconstructions that show the realities of archaeological work are especially valuable.

Reconstructing Troy

Elsewhere in the Troy gallery, displays of objects from the site are accompanied by artistic depictions of people using those objects in furnished spaces. These reconstructions, which include elements like wooden looms and woven rugs, remind us of the objects in our lives that often don’t survive in the archaeological record. Alongside these images are scale models of specific complexes; though these scale models are empty of people and objects, they provide a more striking image of the architecture at the site than is presented in traditional plans.

Figure 3. A reconstruction of women spinning yarn and weaving on a vertical loom (photo by author).

Figure 4. A scale model of a house from Troy I (c. 2920–2550 BCE) (photo by author).

Reconstructing the past is not without risk, however. Visual media are a particularly powerful way of communicating information. Thus, a reconstruction can obscure the distinction between evidence and inference and leave visitors with a mistaken impression of its subject. In the Troy gallery, some of the displays and reconstructions lean heavily on the myth of the Trojan War, in which the city was besieged and sacked by a Greek army led by mythological heroes like Agamemnon and Achilles. For example, an impressive audio-visual reconstruction of Troy’s occupation phases depicts the Trojan War as the cause of the site’s destruction at the end of the Late Bronze Age (though it is unclear if the evidence supports this interpretation). A large reconstruction of the landscape around ancient Troy—ostensibly based on evidence from archaeological excavation and embedded within the part of the gallery focused on scientific archaeology—also depicts this landscape as under attack.

This myth is certainly an important part of the site’s history, as it shaped the campaigns of early explorers, including that of Heinrich Schliemann, who is remembered as the man who rediscovered Troy. However, by embedding the myth of the Trojan War into the narrative of the exhibit and into reconstructions of the past, the Museum obscures over a century of scholarly debate over the historicity of this event and the complex political history of Bronze Age Anatolia.

Figure 5. Photos of a reconstruction of the ancient Trojan landscape. A close-up highlights the inclusion of attacking Greeks (photo by author).

Figure 5. Photos of a reconstruction of the ancient Trojan landscape. A close-up highlights the inclusion of attacking Greeks (photo by author).

Reconstructing Dispossession

A final narrative that I want to explore is found in a single display case near the beginning of the exhibit. This area, which describes the mythology around Troy and its centuries-long history of exploration and excavation, visually refers to museums of the past with display cases of wood and warped glass and text made to look like newspaper headlines. One of these cases is dedicated to telling the story of “Priam’s Treasure,” a hoard of gold jewelry and other artifacts excavated at Troy by Heinrich Schliemann in 1873. Schliemann’s focus on mythological history led to his original conclusion that this treasure belonged to “the period of the Trojan War,” though later study revealed that it dates much earlier.

Figure 6. A display case with photos of objects from “Priam’s Treasure” that are held in other museums. At the center is a famous photo of Schliemann’s wife, Sophia, wearing items from the treasure (photo by author).

The display tells the story of how the treasure was smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire and how it moved between museums throughout Europe until it arrived in its current home in the Pushkin Museum in Russia in 1995. The absence of most of these artifacts is emphasized by a few of the objects that have been successfully returned to Turkey; meanwhile, the collection and its journey have been reconstructed using photographs, maps, and text. Other museums include similar exhibits that emphasize the loss of cultural heritage, such as the Acropolis Museum in Athens that uses plaster casts to remind viewers of the Parthenon Marbles that were removed from the country and remain in the British Museum today. (See also this video on the museum website that traces particular marbles around the globe.)

Research on provenance—where an object came from, its history of ownership, and the ways it may have been damaged, altered, or repaired over time—is important for understanding the authenticity and legality of museum collections. However, this research also highlights the unethical or illegal ways that many cultural heritage objects have been removed from their original contexts.

Almost every foreign visitor to Istanbul tries baklava, the delicacy made of thin layers of dough, nuts or pistachios, and sugar syrup, which comes in various shapes. By the way, fresh baklava with pistachios is especially delicious if served with a portion of damla sakız dondurma (mastic ice cream). On a particularly hot summer day, I recommend having it with a slice of kesme dondurma (“sliced ice cream”), an ice cream so firm that it must be eaten with a knife and fork.

Dessert lovers should also try other pastry specialties that come in a variety of shapes and flavors. The numerous and sometimes very old shops on Istiklal Caddesi sell specialties with flowery names such as bülbül yuvası (nightingale's nest), hanım göbeği (lady's belly), sütlü nuriye (nuriye—a woman's given name—with milk), vezir parmaği (vizier's finger) or kadayif. Commonly known and loved as a typical souvenir is Turkish delight (Fig. 1), lokum, made with nuts or fruit juice, or rose water. As delicious as these sweet treats are, Anatolian cuisine has much more to offer.

If you are looking for a more exotic souvenir, try the macun from Manisa, a soft candy that is a bit sticky on the palate but tastes very aromatic (Figs. 2 and 3). Manisa mesir paste is made out of spices mixed with various herbs such as cinnamon, black pepper, pimento, black cumin, mustard seed, aniseed, coriander, ginger, turmeric, coconut, fennel, cubeb, cassis, fructus, myroba, vanilla, piper longum, cardamon, galingale, fructus cassiae fistule, saffron, cumin, rose hip, myrrh, licorice, rhizoa zeoariae, lemon peel, orange peel, thistle seed, linseed, locust, opium poppy, stinging nettle, white pepper, grape seed, chaste berry seed, dried rosemary, erica leaf, melissa, fructus myrobalani nigri, and hibiscus. The consumption of these candies is said to have a healing effect. According to legend, the wife of the Ottoman sultan Yavuz Selim, Hafsa Sultan, fell ill during her stay in Manisa. As there was no cure, Merkez Effendi, the head of the madrasa of the Sultan's mosque, prepared a paste of herbs and spices. After eating this paste, Hafsa Sultan recovered. Following her recovery, she ordered this paste to be spread from the minarets of the sultan's mosque. This tradition has been maintained in Manisa since 1539.

Fig. 2- 3 Photo by author.

The traditional lollipops that can be bought fresh in the streets of Istanbul, but also in villages like Behram/Assos and many other places in Turkey, are prepared in a similar way. However, they do not contain a variety of herbs and spices but only fruit juices or tree resin (damla sakiz or mastic) and a lot of sugar (Fig. 4). The seller dips a wooden stick into the sugar mass and turns the stick several times so that the gluey mass wraps around the stick. Now the lollipop is ready!

Fig. 4. Assos excavation archive, Aykan Özener.

Other than these sweet souvenirs and shelf-stable desserts, Turkish cuisine has equally tasty creamy desserts to offer that you should not miss out on.

Milk dishes are especially delicious. Even something as common as rice pudding (sütlaç) has a special Turkish twist to it. It is prepared with regular rice, not the round-grain rice used in other countries. Turkish rice pudding is not firm but rather creamy. Most importantly, it is placed in the oven in a second step after cooking, causing the top layer of milk to caramelize (Fig. 5). Tasting it is highly recommended!

Fig. 5. Photo by author.

The more adventurous Istanbul travelers should definitely try tavuk göğüsü (a dessert literally called “chicken breast”). Tavuk göğüsü consists of finely pureed chicken breast cooked in sweetened milk and rice flour as a starch to thicken the milk (Fig. 6). The dessert is usually served with cinnamon. Sometimes it is grilled in the oven, resulting in a caramelized top and tasting almost more delicious than the unbaked version (Fig. 7). This preparation is called kazandibi (“bottom of the pot”). I often had the pleasure of treating foreign visitors who were not vegetarians or vegans to a tavuk göğüsü and then having them guess what the dessert was after the meal. Nobody had any idea that there was meat in the dessert!

Fig. 6-7 wikimedia

Regarding possible historic roots, tavuk göğüsü bears no resemblance to the pullus tractogalatus (chicken in milk porridge) described by the Roman cook Apicius in the 3rd or 4th century CE. In this dish, the chicken (or fish) was first cooked in white wine and olive oil, boned, and then the mouthfuls of chopped meat were doused in a porridge made from chicken broth, milk, honey, and grape juice. It is possible that Europeans brought the white meat and milk dish back to Europe during the Crusades, having learned it from the Arabs. A similar dish to tavuk göğüsü, blanc mange, was eaten by nobles and wealthy people in the European Middle Ages. In the oldest German cookbook from around 1350, the Buoch von guoter spise, there is a recipe that calls for rice ground into flour, milk, and a chicken breast to be cooked together. Other recipes used fish instead of chicken. For the nobility, however, blanc mange was not a dessert but a main dish.

Another famous dessert, aşure, has different roots. According to the legend, when Noah saw the land again with his ark, he cooked a pudding from the remaining supplies, namely cereals and dried fruits. In the ancient Greek pantheon, wheat symbolized the earth goddess Demeter, pomegranates represented her daughter Persephone, queen of the underworld, almonds were sacred to Aphrodite, and raisins were sacred to the god Dionysus. Interestingly, the eastern Romans, as inhabitants of Byzantium, also knew of such a pudding, which they called kollyba (or kolivia). It is said that kollyba was the food that the Virgin Mary was fed as a child in the temple by angels from heaven, as depicted on a wall mosaic in the Chora Church in Istanbul (fig. 8). There are different recipes to prepare kollyba, whose main ingredient is boiled wheat mixed with various dried fruits. It is served as a common Lenten food and was therefore commonly eaten in monasteries. Kollyba was also prepared as a dish for the commemoration of the dead. For the Greeks, aşure is also known as barvara (Βαρβάρα), named after the feast of Saint Barbara that is celebrated on the 4th of December. During this festival, it is cooked and shared with neighbors.

Fig. 8. Photo by author.

The ingredients for aşure (but also for varvara or kollyba) are wheat grains, white beans, and chickpeas, and sometimes also rice and barley, that are cooked until soft. After draining, the aşure is sweetened with honey or sugar. In addition, aşure also contains some or all of the following: sesame seeds, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, cinnamon, sugar, pekmez, pomegranate seeds, raisins, sultanas, dried apricots, figs, dates, grated orange or lemon peel, cardamom, cloves, black cumin, mastic, rose water, or even anise (Fig. 9). Every family in Turkey (as well as in Greece, the Balkans, and the Middle East) has its own recipe, but the one thing they have in common is that they always make a big pot to share with others. So, if you have a chance to try a homemade aşure, do not miss out on it. Otherwise, try my favorite Anatolian sweet at one of the many muhallebecisi (pudding maker) in Istanbul!

Fig. 9. wikimedia

Afiyet olsun!

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Further readings/bibliography:

Apicius, De re coquiniaria

Anagnostiakis, Ilias, ed. Flavours and Delights. Tastes and Pleasures of Ancient and Byzantine Cuisine. Athens: Armos, 2013.

Baş, Nejla. Mutfağımızdaki Tehlike. Istanbul: Ser Kitap, 2019.

Papanikola-Bakirtzi, Dimitri, ed. Byzantinōn diatrophē kai mageireiai/Food and Cooking in Byzantium. Athens: Museum of Byzntine Culture, 2005.

Waksman, Sylvie Y., ed. Multidisciplinary Approaches to Food and Foodways in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean. Lyon: MOM Editions, 2020.

www.kulturportali.gov.tr/turkiye/genel/neyenir

In fact, observing people is my hobby; I have long been aware of the fact that we have a nature prone to categorizing each other by virtue of the fact that the human being is judgmental and tribal. We feel the need to aggrandize and interact with those who think or are like us. On the other hand, we perceive others as factors that may create the potential for cultural conflicts. The irony is that we do this mostly involuntarily. Moreover, we do not easily give up defending or being surrounded by our “own” groups that we adopt, even if we do not benefit from them or, even, though we may suffer from this in-group interaction (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-06-14/tribal-world). This disintegration tendency, which we have gained throughout the evolutionary process (Yilmaz 2019), and which is largely involuntary, causes us to adopt people or groups that are similar to us, while making us prone to perceiving others as possible actors of cultural conflicts. It is known that even now, we do not have sufficient immunity to the ingrained nature of this behavior (Clark et al. 2019). While there is a moral aspect to this, it is also true that the polarizing nature of human beings is highly dependent on the functioning of our hormonal system (De Dreu et al. 2011). Since this behavior is complex, the combined use of social and biological methods to examine this complex structure is an approach that has recently been attracting attention (Cikara et al. 2014).

As mentioned above, our inclination and effort to interact with people and groups we feel close to is obvious and perhaps understandable in most cases, given our urge to avoid potential conflicts. Well, I question whether we can perceive the concrete or abstract reflections of this pattern in human-space interaction. Are there tangible implications of our need to be in places where we find ourselves culturally closer or where we feel more accepted? Do we really tend to concentrate more around these places? In most cases, I find this difficult to embody in a formulaic way. However, that places/spaces where we feel ourselves to be closer and safer, and even feel the need to belong, are more attractive to ourselves or to our group is an acceptable proposition.

It is known that people who share the same ethnicity or language tend to live together. Chinatowns in western countries, Kreuzberg in Berlin where many Turks live, and the neighborhood inhabited by a large Syrian community in the Fatih district of Istanbul (https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/istanbulda-kulturuyle-sanatiyla-ve -restaurant-syria-mahallesi-40026339) are the most concrete examples that come to my mind. Well, in popular non-residential areas, is there a tendency for groups of people on the move to gravitate towards places and areas that they feel socio-culturally close to or more embraced within? Let's take a look at Beyoğlu, one of the busiest and most touristic areas of Istanbul… This region stands out for its social dynamics rather than its residential nature. In this context, contrary to the equalization and uniformity of residential areas (Saltman 1975), Beyoğlu is quite rich in terms of human-space interaction and diversity. To briefly touch on the principles of the "space syntax" theory: the movement and orientation of people is strongly related to the layout of the space through which they move (Hillier and Janson 1984). People move linearly and interact within convex spaces (Hiller and Vaughan 2007). In this context, when the morphological structure of Beyoğlu is considered, Tarlabaşı Boulevard is the scene of serious socio-cultural differences between its northern and southern ends. Istiklal Street, on the other hand, reflects a more capitalist individuality, and it is the main movement axis for pedestrians. The segregated side streets’ connection to Istiklal, on the other hand, are as transition lines (Figure 1) leading to places where people interact with each other or with the spatial cultures they feel close to (Özkan-Özbek 2021). It can be observed that people moving on Istiklal Street generally walk monotonously in a single line, meet their short-term needs in shopping and eating spots, and that many of them are on the move without even looking up. This dynamic of Istiklal started to gain momentum with the "Beautiful Beyoğlu Project" initiated in the early 1980s to improve the tourism potential of Beyoğlu (Keyder 1999). While there is a capitalist universality and relative monotony to Istiklal Street, the side streets and segregated spots lead people, who are similar to each other, to cluster.

Nodal points connecting the main axes and side streets force people to decide and make choices. Groups with similar cultural perceptions, interests, and backgrounds tend to concentrate in certain areas, since they have similar perceptual inferences (Lynch 1973). In this context, it can be observed that certain areas in Beyoğlu are concentrated with people who share similar cultural identities and lifestyles. For example, Akansu Street, Firuzağa (Figure 2), Hayriye Street, and Cihangir are preferred by the people that look more modern, are secular, enjoy popular culture, prefer alternative music movements, and consciously or unconsciously adopt escapism culture. This is so much so that the pro-Islamic municipality, which came to power with the 1994 local elections, wanted to equip public spaces with Islamic motifs, encouraging Islamic activities in public spaces, and this caused a polemic which escalated tensions between a secular mass in Cihangir and the municipality (Yetiskul and Demirel 2018). In addition, these regions and their groups attract attention as places preferred by young visitors, mainly from western countries.

Figure 2. On the left, Akansu Sokak, an isolated spot which has become popular for its entertainment venues and culture. On the right, a place from Firuzağa and people having fun (photos by author).

Unlike the cultural texture in the east and south of Istiklal Street, on the other hand, a different cultural texture prevails in the west. For example, the dominance of a traditional and arabesque culture is striking on Nevizade Street (Figure 3) and in its close vicinity. The domination of coffeehouse culture on the side streets of Şehit Muhtar Mahallesi (Figure 3), located just to the west of Taksim Square, is noticeable. Seeing "traditional" and "oriental" locals and Arab immigrants, who find themselves closer to the cultural texture in this area, is a common thing to observe. Again, in this area, the interest in Arabic and Kurdish songs can be easily perceived. The way people in this area look at people who are not like them draws attention. If you observe your environment carefully, you can see that many tourists and locals visit the streets here for a short period of time, mainly due to personal curiosity. Also, they often perceive this area as nothing but a transit route.

Figure 3. On the left, Nevizade Street; on the right, a street from Şehit Muhtar Mahallesi (photos by author).

Therefore, although there is a large range of factors that shape spatial and cultural segregation or concentration, it is clear that each spatial entity can be represented with a culture that has evolved over time. When looked at carefully, the reflections of this phenomenon can be seen in Beyoğlu. This inclination to cultural clustering, which can be sharper depending on the area, can often be perceived if you are careful enough.  

But sometimes a cat can break the pattern :)

References

Cikara, Mina, and Jay J. Van Bavel. "The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review.” Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science 9, no. 3 (2014): 245–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614527464

Clark, Cory J, Brittany S. Liu, Bo M. Winegard, and Peter H. Ditto. “Tribalism Is Human Nature.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 28, no. 6 (2019): 587–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419862289

De Dreu, Carsten K. W., Lindred L. Greer, Gerben A. Van Kleef, Shaul Shalvi, and Michel J. J. Handgraaf. “Oxytocin Promotes Human Ethnocentrism.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, no. 4 (2011): 1262–66. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1015316108

Hillier, Bill, and Julienne Hanson. The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1984). doi:10.1017/CBO9780511597237

Keyder, Çağlar. Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

Marcuse, Peter. “Enclaves Yes, Ghettos No, Segregation and The State.” In Desegregating The City, Ghettos, Enclaves & Inequality, edited by D. P. Varady, pp. 15–30. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Özkan-Özbek, Müge. “Tarihsel Süreçlerde Taksim Meydanı ve Beyoğlu Bölgesinin Morfolojik Evrimi ve Sentaktik Analizleri.” Tasarım Kuram 17, no. 32 (2021): 35–54.

Saltman, Juliet. 1975. “Implementing Open Housing Laws through Social Action.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 11: 39–61.

Vaughan, Laura. “The Spatial Syntax of Urban Segregation.” Progress in Planning 67 2007: 205–94.

Yetiskul, Emine, and Şule Demirel. “Assembling Gentrification in Istanbul: The Cihangir Neighbourhood of Beyoğlu.” Urban Studies 55, no. 15 (2018): 3336–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098017746623

Esasında, insanları çok sık gözlemlerim; ön koşullu ve kabileci bir tür olmamız nedeniyle birbirimizi sınıflandırmaya eğilimli bir doğamız olduğu gerçeğinin de uzun süredir farkındayım. Kendimiz gibi olanları, kendimiz gibi düşünenleri yüceltme ve onlarla etkileşim halinde olma ihtiyacı içinde hissediyoruz; diğerlerini ise kültürel çatışma potansiyeli oluşturabilecek unsurlar olarak algılıyoruz. Bu durumun ironik tarafı ise, bunu çoğunlukla istemsiz olarak yapıyoruz. Üstelik yakın hissettiğimiz kişilerden herhangi bir fayda sağlamasak, hatta zarar görsek dahi benimsediğimiz “kendi” gruplarımızı savunmaktan kolay kolay vazgeçmiyoruz (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-06-14/tribal-world. Evrimsel süreçte kazandığımız (Yılmaz, 2019) ve büyük oranda istemsiz olan bu ayrışma eğilimi bizi, bizlere benzeyen ve bizim gibi düşünen kişi veya toplulukları benimsememize, bizden farklı olanla ise direkt veya dolaylı olarak kültürel çatışma içinde olma ve ondan uzaklaşma eğilimine sahip olmamıza neden olmakta. Şu an için dahi bu tutuma karşı yeteri kadar bağışıklığa sahip olmadığımız aşikar (Clark vd., 2019). Bunun ahlaki bir boyutu olsa da insanın kutuplaşmacı yapısının önemli derecede hormonal sistemimizin işleyişine bağlı olduğu da bir gerçek. (De Dreu vd., 2011) Bu kompleks yapının incelenmesi için sosyal ve biyolojik yöntemlerin birlikte kullanımı da yakın dönemde ilgi gören bir yaklaşım olarak dikkat çekmekte. (Cikara vd., 2014).

Kendimizi yakın hissettiğimiz kişi ve gruplar ile etkileşim halinde olma eğilimimiz ve çabamız aşikar ve potansiyel çatışmalardan sakınma dürtümüzü de göz önünde bulundurduğumuzda belki de çoğu durumda anlaşılabilir. Peki bu durumun insan-mekân etkileşiminin şekillenmesindeki somut veya soyut yansımalarını algılayabilir miyiz diye sorguluyorum. Kendimize yakın bulduğumuz veya kendimizi daha kabul edilir hissettiğimiz yerlerde bulunma ihtiyacımızın somut yansımaları var mıdır? Buralarda gerçekten daha çok yoğunlaşmaya mı eğilimliyiz? Çoğu durumda, bunun formülleştirilebilir bir şekilde somutlaştırılmasının zor olduğu kanaatindeyim. Ancak, kendimizi sosyal açıdan daha yakın ve güvende bulduğumuz ve hatta ait olma ihtiyacı içinde hissettiğimiz yerlerin/mekânların kendimize veya grubumuza daha cazip geldiği gerçeğini de kabul edilebilir bir öneri olacağı düşüncesindeyim.

Aynı etnik kökeni veya dili paylaşan insanların bir arada yaşamaya eğilimli olduğu bilinen bir gelenek. Batı ülkelerindeki Çin mahalleleri, Türklerin yoğun şekilde yaşadığı Berlin’deki Kreuzberg, İstanbul’un Fatih semtindeki Suriyelilerin yoğun olarak yaşadığı mahalle (https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/istanbulda-kulturuyle-sanatiyla-ve -restaurant-syria-mahallesi-40026339) aklıma gelen en somut örnekler. Peki, konutsal olmayan popüler bölgelerde, hareket halindeki insan gruplarının da sosyokültürel olarak kendilerine yakın hissettikleri veya daha çok benimsedikleri mekânlara ve alanlara yönelme eğilimi var mıdır? İstanbul’un en işlek bölgelerinden olan Beyoğlu’na bakalım… Bu bölge, meskun mahal alanlarından çok sosyal dinamikleriyle öne çıkmaktadır.  Bu bağlamda, konutsal alanların denkleştiriciliği ve tekdüzeliğinin (Saltman, 1975) aksine insan-mekân etkileşimi ve çeşitliliği açısından oldukça zengindir. Bu bağlamda, ara bir not olarak “mekân dizimi” yönteminin ilkelerine kısaca değinmek gerekirse: İnsanların hareket ve yönelim yapısı mekânın düzeni ile çok güçlü şekilde bağlantılıdır (Hillier & Janson, 1984). İnsanlar doğrusal şekilde hareket eder ve dışbükey alanların içerisinde etkileşime geçerler (Vaughan, 2007). Bu bağlamda, Beyoğlu bölgesinin morfolojik yapısına baktığımızda, Tarlabaşı Bulvarı’nın kuzeyi ve güneyi arasında ciddi bir sosyokültürel farklılık bulunduğu zaten bilinmekte. İstiklal Caddesi’nin ise kapitalist bireyselliği yansıttığı, yayalar için ana hareket aksı olduğu ve bu caddeye bağlanan ara sokakların daha ayrıştırılmış, izole (Şekil 1) ve insanların birbirleriyle veya yakın hissettikleri mekânsal kültürlerle etkileşime geçtiği yerlere açılan geçiş alanları olduğu görülür (Özkan-Özbek, 2021). İstiklal Caddesi üzerinde hareket eden insanların genellikle monoton bir şekilde tek bir hat üzerinde yürüdüğü, alışveriş ve yeme içme mekânlarında kısa süreli ihtiyaçlarını karşıladıkları, hatta pek çoğunun başlarını kaldırıp yukarı dahi bakmadan hareket içinde oldukları dikkat çeker. İstiklal’in bu dinamiği, 1980’lerin başında Beyoğlu’nun turistik potansiyelini güçlendirmek için başlatılan “Güzel Beyoğlu Projesi” ile ivme kazanmaya başlamıştır (Keyder, 1999). Öte yandan, ara sokaklar ve pasaj gibi mekân içleri ise insanların mekânla ve birbirleriyle daha çok etkileşime geçtiği yerlerdir. İstiklal Caddesi’nde kapitalist bir evrensellik ve göreceli bir tekdüzelik hâkim iken ara sokaklar, birbirine benzeyen ve benzer kültürlere ilgi duyan insan ve mekân gruplarının kümeleşme eğilimiyle dikkat çekmektedir.

Ana ve ara rotaları birbirine bağlayan düğüm noktaları insanları karar vermeye ve tercih yapmaya zorlar. Benzer kültürel algıya ve geçmişe sahip olan gruplar, benzer imgesel çıkarımlara sahip olmaları nedeniyle belirli bölgelerde yoğunlaşma eğilimindedirler (Lynch, 1973: 7; 81). Bu bağlamda, Beyoğlu’nda belirli bölgelerin benzer kültürel kimlik ve yaşam biçimini paylaşan insanların yoğunlaşmasına sahne olduğu gözlemlenmektedir. Örneğin, Akansu Sokak bölgesinde, Firuzağa’da (Şekil 2), Hayriye Caddesi’nde ve Cihangir’de daha çağdaş, seküler ve popüler kültürü daha çok benimsemiş, ayrıca alternatif müzik akımlarını tercih eden ve gerçeklikten kaçış kültürüne bilinçli veya bilinçsiz olarak adapte olmuş insan ve mekan gruplarının yoğunlaştığı görülür. Öyle ki, 1994 yılı yerel seçimiyle başa gelen islamcı belediyenin kamusal alanları islamist motiflerle donatmak istemesi, kamusal alanlardaki islami faaliyetleri teşvik etmesi ve bundan dolayı Cihangir’deki seküler kitle ile belediyenin karşı karşıya gelmesi hala akıllarda kalanlardan (Yetiskul & Demirel, 2018). Ek olarak, bu bölgeler ve buralardaki mekan grupları bilhassa batı ülkelerinden gelen genç ziyaretçilerin de daha çok tercih ettiği yerler olarak dikkat çekmektedir.

Şekil 2. Sol tarafta eğlence mekanlarıyla ve kültürüyle popüler hale gelmiş olan ve izole bir konumda bulunan Akansu Sokak, sağ tarafta ise yine benzer bir kültürel dokuya sahip olan Firuzağa bölgesinden bir mekan ve eğlenen insanlar (Yazar tarafından fotoğraflanmıştır).

Diğer taraftan, İstiklal Caddesi’nin doğusundaki ve güneyindeki kültürel dokunun aksine, batısında daha farklı bir kültürel doku hakimdir. Örneğin, Nevizade Sokağı’ndağ ve yakın çevresinde geleneksel ve arabesk bir kültürün baskınlığı göze çarpmaktadır (Şekil 2). Taksim Meydanı’nın hemen batısında yer alan Şehit Muhtar Mahallesi’nin ara sokaklarında ise baskın kahvehane kültürü hakimdir ve bu kültüre kendini daha yakın bulan, “geleneksel” ve “oryantal” yerliler ve Arap göçmenler bu bölgede daha yoğun olarak görülür (Şekil 3). Yine bu semtte Arapça ve Kürtçe şarkılara olan ilgi kolayca algılanabilir. Bu bölgedeki insanların, kendileri gibi olmayan insanlara bakışları kolayca dikkat çeker. Pek çok turistin ve yerlinin ise buradaki sokakları genellikle kişisel merak için oldukça kısa süreli ziyaret ettikleri, daha çok da bir geçiş güzergahı olarak kullandıkları kolayca gözlemlenebilir.

Şekil 3. Sol tarafta Nevizade Sokağı, sağ tarafta Şehit Muhtar Mahallesi’nden bir sokak (Yazar tarafından fotoğraflanmıştır).

Dolayısıyla, mekânsal ve kültürel ayrışma/yoğunlaşma eğiliminin bir çok faktörü olsa da, her bölgenin, kökleri genellikle eskilere dayanan bir kültüre sahip olduğu aşikar. Dikkatli bakıldığında Beyoğlu’nda bu durumun yansımaları rahatlıkla görülebilir. Bu denli küçük bir alandaki, yer yer daha keskin olabilen bu kültürel kümelenme eğilimi ve bu eğilimin zaman içerisinde yoğunlaşması, dikkatli gözlemlendiğinde algılanabilir.  

Bazen de bir kedi tüm kalıpları yıkabilir :)

Kaynaklar

Cikara, Mina, ve Jay J. Van Bavel. "The Neuroscience of Intergroup Relations: An Integrative Review.” Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science 9, no. 3 (2014): 245–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614527464

Clark, Cory J, Brittany S. Liu, Bo M. Winegard ve Peter H. Ditto. “Tribalism Is Human Nature.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 28, no. 6 (2019): 587–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419862289

De Dreu, Carsten K. W., Lindred L. Greer, Gerben A. Van Kleef, Shaul Shalvi ve Michel J. J. Handgraaf. “Oxytocin Promotes Human Ethnocentrism.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108, no. 4 (2011): 1262–66. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1015316108

Hillier, Bill ve Julienne Hanson. The Social Logic of Space. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1984). doi:10.1017/CBO9780511597237

Keyder, Çağlar. Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.

Marcuse, Peter. “Enclaves Yes, Ghettos No, Segregation and The State.” Desegregating The City, Ghettos, Enclaves & Inequality, ed. D. P. Varady, 15–30. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

Özkan-Özbek, Müge. “Tarihsel Süreçlerde Taksim Meydanı ve Beyoğlu Bölgesinin Morfolojik Evrimi ve Sentaktik Analizleri.” Tasarım Kuram 17, no. 32 (2021): 35–54.

Saltman, Juliet. 1975. “Implementing Open Housing Laws through Social Action.” Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 11: 39–61.

Vaughan, Laura. “The Spatial Syntax of Urban Segregation.” Progress in Planning 67 2007: 205–94.

Yetiskul, Emine ve Şule Demirel. “Assembling Gentrification in Istanbul: The Cihangir Neighbourhood of Beyoğlu.” Urban Studies 55, no. 15 (2018): 3336–52. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098017746623

Living at ANAMED at the heart of a historic metropolis of 16 million people has many advantages. However, one notable drawback is the lack of easy access to substantial areas of green space, with many of the parks within easy walking distance of ANAMED lacking in size, quantity of vegetation, and seclusion from the noise of the city. In search of spaces to get back to nature, I’ve spent much of my free time here so far finding and exploring a number of the city’s recently established “Kent Ormanılar,” or city forests. Conscious of the current climate crisis, I’ve tried to access all of these using only public transport. I present a brief guide to my favorites below.

Atatürk Kent Ormanı

Time from ANAMED: About 30 minutes

How to get there: Walk from ANAMED to Şişhane metro station. Take the M2 line north towards Hacıosman. Get off at either Darüşşafaka station, to access the forest park from the south, or at Hacıosman, to access it from the north. In both stations, there are signs marked “Atatürk Kent Ormanı” to lead you to the right exit.

What you’ll find there: The park is nestled in a small valley leading down to a lake on the eastern side. Although relatively small, the placement of the valley effectively blocks out much of the surrounding traffic noise and enhances the feeling of seclusion. The paths are generally well laid and maintained, making them suitable for easy cycling. You can walk between the metro stations on a flat path in only 20 minutes, but the steep slopes of the valley mean that exploring all of the park’s routes takes over an hour.

Areas for improvement: The signs say you’re not allowed to feed the ducks in the lake, although I’ve never seen this stop anyone. Despite the suitability of the paths for cycling, I’ve seen nowhere nearby where you can rent bikes. The park’s small size and ease of access on the metro means it can be relatively crowded on a nice day as compared to the others listed here.

Kemerburgaz Kent Ormanı

Time from ANAMED: About 1 hour and 15 minutes

How to get there: Walk from ANAMED to Şişhane metro station. Take the M2 line north towards Hacıosman. Get off the M2 at Şişli/Mecdiyeköy and change to the M7 line, heading in the direction of Mahmutbey. Get off the M7 at Kağıthane station, and follow the signs to the first exit. Head towards the large red “U” sign crossing over two lanes of traffic to reach the separate Kağıthane M11 station. Trains leave from here every 20 minutes for the Istanbul airport. Ride two stops on the M11, and get off at Kemerburgaz station. Take the first exit from the station, and wait at the bus stop next to the station for the 48U bus heading towards Büyük Bent. For the main entrance to the Kent Ormanı, get off at the stop named Habipler Yolu. This bus only comes every half an hour, so you may consider taking a taxi as an alternative. Although the distance from the Kemerburgaz metro station to the Kent Ormanı is only about 2 km, I would not recommend walking, as you need to cross a busy motorway intersection with no safe pedestrian route.

What you’ll find there: The park is large enough that you can easily spend three or four hours walking continuously without retracing your steps. The park sits on the western side of a large river and lake leading up to the Mağlova aqueduct, a Byzantine aqueduct reconstructed in the Ottoman era. Following the path from the park’s main entrance to the aqueduct itself is about a six-km walk. This is not the only route around the park, however, with others running along the lake shore and through the forest, offering a level of seclusion among nature difficult to find elsewhere in Istanbul. The deepest parts of the forest retain an impressive range of flora and fauna, including spring wildflowers and large birds of prey. Bicycles and quadricycles are rentable from offices near the park’s main entrance. A range of eateries, sports activity venues, and other amenities are also on offer.

Areas for improvement: The park has been somewhat overdeveloped, with only the areas directly by the lake remaining fully forested. Even in the forested areas, the place is carpeted with far more picnicking benches than could ever be used. While the paving of most of the park’s routes makes cycling easy, visitors are also permitted to take cars along these, spoiling the quiet of the forest.

Fig. 2. A view of the park’s river and lake, with the Mağlova aqueduct just visible in the distance.

Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Kent Ormanı

Time from ANAMED: At least 1 hour and 30 minutes

How to get there: There are multiple possible routes, depending on if you want to cross the Bosphorus by bus, boat, or metro. To go via metro, walk from ANAMED to Şişhane metro station. Take the M2 line in the direction of Yenikapı, and get off at Yenikapı. Change here for the Marmaray line towards Gebze. Get off at Üsküdar, and change to the M5 metro line toward Çekmeköy. Get off the M5 at Yamanevler. Take the first exit at the station, and wait at the Yamanevler bus stop on the other side of the road. Wait for the 11H bus heading towards Çifteçınarlar. Get off the bus at the stop directly outside the main entrance to the Kent Ormanı.

What you’ll find there: The forest is relatively small, but some pleasant winding paths have been built through the woodland. Unlike most other forest parks where barbecues are strictly forbidden, dedicated barbecue spaces have been constructed here, with seating and fans for the smoke. Among other amenities, there is a paddock for horse riding.

Fig. 3. A horse.

Areas for improvement: A substantial part of the forest park is still under construction, including the area surrounding its small, central lake. The forest park is a long, thin strip of land situated between two major roads, so nowhere in the forest are you ever entirely free from the noise of the traffic. There is a bridge suitable for pedestrians which crosses over the highway to the north and connects to the larger area of forest around the Elmalı Baraj Lake, but much of this area is still under construction, and access for pedestrians is currently forbidden. Unfortunately, despite the name, I have found no historical link between the woods and Sultan Süleyman I.

Fig. 4. Deep in the woods of the Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Kent Ormanı.

The Seljuq connection

My own research looks at the history of the Seljuqs, exploring the impact of their invasions, both within Anatolia and elsewhere. Since coming to Istanbul, I’ve become much better acquainted with just how significant my period of study is for modern Turks and how frequently the Seljuq and Ottoman past is invoked and disputed in discussing Turkey’s future direction. Is there therefore evidence for a Seljuq attitude toward conservation and the preservation of green space? Should we imagine their periodic pillaging of cities which resisted their conquests as a forerunner to the modern vogue for rewilding?

I recently came across a story in an Arabic manuscript which encouraged me to consider this issue further. It is reported by the twelfth century litterateur and historian Ibn Funduq and concerns the Sultan Muhammad ibn Malikshah, ruler of the Great Seljuq Empire from 1105–1118. The Sultan wished to have a new garden, and one of his agents set about building it. However, in doing so, the agent ruined a plot of land belonging to a poor, old woman. The old woman complained to the Chief Justice about her loss, who in turn went and reproached the Sultan, telling him he would be held responsible for such tyrannical behavior on the day of judgment. The Sultan sent a military slave, a mamluk, to try and fix the problem, but instead of helping her, the slave tried threatening the old woman into silence. Eventually, after learning of his slave’s behavior, the Sultan summoned the old woman to his court, sat her at the same level as his throne, and begged her forgiveness for the injustices done to her. She agreed to forgive him in exchange for restoring her land to how it had been before and buying all of the fruit that had grown there at over one hundred times its value. Keen to make amends, the Sultan not only ordered for all this to be done but had the original agent crucified on the gate of the plot of land for his injustice. This last action surprised and rather bemused the old woman, who had been quite satisfied with the Sultan’s money and having her plot of land restored.

The answer they were expecting for their question was clear enough, and it fit my own past experience, anyway: to live in Istanbul without Turkish, as a monolingual English-speaker, is doable but dissatisfying, limiting one's social life to an expatriate circle that gets very stale quite fast. But I sensed, even then, the bitter edge to their question. Of course, there are many, many who live in Istanbul without much Turkish, and they do so because they live here precariously; under threat of deportation, of being driven one night to the border, or because they expect one day to transit to their next destination. If there is a question of “possibility” here, it is not one rooted in individual effort but in systematic barriers. A Somali restaurant has its sign defaced for “not being Turkish,” even as Burger King, Starbucks, and Pizza Hut remain sacrosanct. And there is also the historic fact that—once upon a time—one very well could have lived in Istanbul as a Greek-speaker, an Armenian-speaker, French, Ladino, Romany, Arabic, Kurdish, or Persian, without the question of “possibility” entering one’s mind: a fact claimed by revanchists and nostalgics alike, although testifying only to the necessarily political conditions by which things are made to seem possible or not.

Second. There is a friend of mine—one of those slightly maddening friends that make life worthwhile. And he has that sort of facility with languages which makes one alternately awed and envious. Not that it comes easily, without work. Many times, I have seen him with his stack of worksheets and grammar textbooks in the library, talking to strangers, going to classes, getting in his daily practice in French, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, and so on. He lives in Istanbul now and has set his skills to Turkish. Here, he has encountered a problem, he says. In his lessons, when he does not know well the colloquial Turkish word for a term, he will reach for his archive of Arabic or Persian: words that he knows, correctly, were once in Ottoman. He gives the example of cimri, “stingy,” for which he instead used the older word hasis. And the result, he says, are teachers who throw up their hands like the alafranga dandy Bihruz in Araba Sevdası and proclaim “Çince mi bunlar?” [“Are these Chinese?”] One teacher was so aggravated that she was led, in very Bihruz-like fashion, to declaring even ihtilaf [“dispute”] a “non-Turkish word” and unintelligible to her. Of course, we can sympathize with her: tasked with teaching basic Turkish, she was suddenly confronted with an endless, expansive vocabulary of every word which once graced an Ottoman theological treatise, the divan of an eighteenth-century poet, the tales of a meddah. Yet her response—to declare these all simply “non-Turkish”—is striking. It seems unlikely, to me, that she would have reacted with the same exasperation had he simply said “stingy”for cimri instead of hasis. It is the uncanniness of these words, then, that provokes: the way that they tug at memory, at the edge of mishearing, words encountered once or twice on a page in a Tanzimat-era novel read halfheartedly in high school. Spoken aloud, they are both vaguely familiar and utterly foreign. The classroom requires, of course, all things to be clear; yet isn’t it precisely these disconcerting, ambiguous words (the teacher would say belirsiz, my friend, müphem) that give language its poetry, its capaciousness, and color?

Third. On my walks through Kadıköy, I often encounter those kinds of shops which seem both totally singular and totally of-a-type: the stores that only sell one specific, hip product, like tiramisu, San Sebastian cheesecake, vegan sashimi, or handmade, artisanal çiğ köfte. Invariably, on weekends, one must wait two hours or four to sit at a spot which offers only one kind of photogenic croissant. Among these stores, however, one in particular caught my eye: a glass-fronted, pastel-toned boutique called the Güzel Kelimeler Dükkânı [The Beautiful Words Shop]. It doesn’t really sell beautiful words, of course, but pillows, shirts, notebooks, mugs, and other items emblazoned with them in large, elegant serif typeface: nâzende, ciğerpare, tahayyül, tebessüm, ümitvar, hayalperest. I had earlier seen quite a few people in hayalperest t-shirts, and the mystery of their origins was thus solved. But, at the same time, I became rather curious about the criteria by which words were deemed beautiful; a notebook with tebessüm [smile] printed across it is rather sweet, I think, but to wrap myself in a towel labeled müptela [addict], mâlumâtfürüş [pedant], or merdümgîriz [misanthrope] is somewhat less becoming. Even hayalperest, intended here to mean visionary or daydreamer, does not really capture the full connotations of perestarî, which (while generally positive) refers in Ottoman to an intense, abject sort of desire: see putperest [idolator], hodperest [egoist], meyperest [drunkard], or şehvetperest [debauchee], or its erotic forms, gulâmperest and zanperest (the derivatives of which, kulampara and zampara, persist in contemporary Turkish). Instead, the criteria which seems to make these words beautiful is precisely the fact of their loss, regardless of their original meaning or use. An aesthetic, certainly; a commodification of nostalgia, perhaps, although one could argue that the late nineteenth-century writers of Servet-i Fünûn tendency [referring to The Wealth of Sciences, a literary and aesthetic gazette] were doing much the same when they scoured their old dictionaries for striking turns of phrase like havf-i siyâh [black terror] and leyâl-i girîzân [fleeing nights]. Still, it is strange to note the evident contrast between the aestheticization and display of such words in daily life and the simultaneous rejection of them as “not really Turkish.” Indeed, one day I noticed on my aforementioned friend’s shelf a book sold at the Güzel Kelimeler Dükkânı, Lûgat365, containing one “beautiful word” for each day of the year: a wonderful coffee table accessory, of course, but one which I am sure was meant to give some other poor language teacher a sense of havf-i siyâh.

As for Lisân-ı Osmânî [The Ottoman Language]:Ali Ekrem (1867–1937), who wrote this poem in 1914 and published it two years later, was among those Servet-i Fünûn writers addicted to Redhouse, to Lehçe-i Osmani, Kamus-i Türki, and the other etymologies and dictionaries available at the turn of the twentieth century. The authors and poets of his generation wrote in the shadow of earlier, heroic figures like Namık Kemal, who, as the literary historian Jale Parla notes, served as the symbolic fathers in the literary realms that they, largely, brought into being; Ali Ekrem had the additional symbolic burden of actually being Namık Kemal’s son. It is not that he fled from this heritage—indeed, he wrote a nazire [parallel poem] to his father’s famous Hürriyet Kasidesi [Ode to Liberty], several biographies of his life, and helped to republish his letters and writings—but there is a sense that his life and career always existed in an uneasy tension with a more illustrious past. He was often discussed in the press merely as “Namık Kemal’in Oğlu,” even in his obituary—and this description was hardly meant to be flattering to the son. Ali Ekrem’s long bureaucratic and academic career naturally drew comparison with the radical romanticism of his father, and his own attempts at similarly rousing, patriotic verse are belied—at least in my reading—by his palpable elitism and preference for the status quo. But it was in the realm of poetic theory and language that Ali Ekrem struck out a more independent path. Whereas Namık Kemal had championed simplicity and verisimilitude in literature and condemned the influence of Persianate “exaggeration” and “artificiality” upon the Ottoman language, Ali Ekrem, like many of the other writers for the Servet-i Fünûn gazette, worked to revive and adapt long-disused Persian and Arabic words and compounds in order to concoct an aesthetic language which, in its expansiveness and conceptual subtlety, could accurately convey the shifting states of consciousness and affect. In the novel Mâi ve Siyah [The Blue and the Black], Halit Ziya puts the linguistic aspirations of this movement in the words of the struggling poet Ahmet Cemil:

Such a language that…to what should I compare it, I don’t know?... Let it be as eloquent as a theologian’s soul, a translator of all our fates, all our thoughts, all our joys, the many subtleties of the heart, the thousand depths of the mind, our thrills, our fits of pique and caprice; a language that can think and sink together with us into the many shades of despair, a language that can cry and mourn together with our souls. A language that can rage alongside us, in our nervousness and excitement […] A language… Oh! You will think I’m talking nonsense, a language almost as if it is fully human.[1]

In essence, the Servet-i Fünûn group sought to create a completely personal, completely “human” language by blasting apart language’s borders, its limits, and its body of received grammatical forms and tropes. To accurately communicate the variegated, individual self—and we should remember here that these writers were largely positivists, believing such a thing to be eminently possible—meant to scour their etymologies and encyclopedias for forgotten words and turns of phrase that, in their foreign familiarity, could depict the jarring nature of the unbared soul and, ultimately, to craft a new language and literature out of these building blocks. Although Ali Ekrem would later break with the Servet-i Fünûn group over an internal dispute, he remained committed to its essential project and among its staunchest defenders well into the Republic.

Lisân-ı Osmânî is perhaps his most forthright apologetic in this regard: a short verse treatise dedicated to the elder poet Abdülhak Hamit but composed in direct response to the provocations of another, younger author: the leading ideologue of the so-called “Young Pens,” Ömer Seyfettin. In manifestos like 1911’s “New Language,” Seyfettin attacked the “artificial,” “unnatural,” and “sick” state of Ottoman Turkish under Persianate influence and the “even more distasteful and meaningless salon literature” of the Servet-i Fünun authors. For Seyfettin, as for likeminded figures such as Ziya Gökalp, the notion of such an expansive, composite language was something freakish and bizarre, which had severed the realms of writing and speech and the culture of the elite from the vitality of the masses. For Gökalp, the prospect of conceiving Ottoman as a “language,” as such, was simply “impossible”—an adjective he did not use in quite the same way as Andrea Moro’s 2016 study Impossible Languages but which for him had similar connotations of something fundamentally irreconcilable with normative human psychology and sociality. Writers like Ali Ekrem had only exacerbated this problem: they had abandoned the search for what Seyfettin called language’s “stable ground”—that is, the correspondence between logos and ethnos—in favor of a language based upon nothing, a floating and endless realm of atomized words with no fixed reference point or social base. In the 1914 article “Turkish Against Palace Language,” Seyfettin directly criticized Ali Ekrem’s poetry, writing “what is this language? Who can write literature in a language that nobody speaks?” He summed it up simply: “nobody can call this ‘Turkish’.” Already, Ali Ekrem was composing Lisân-ı Osmânî as his response. It would eventually be published as a chapbook in 1916. The poem begins by recounting and adapting the verses of the great poets of the Ottoman past: Fuzuli, Nef’i, Nedim, Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem, Tevfik Fikret, Abdülhak Hamit, and, of course, his father. Yet it then switches to address Seyfettin directly:

If you can, then, write in full, clear Turkish.

But can you, really? Before such language,

one must go back five, six hundred years,

our language had stalled, and Persian swept us

into captivity; but from Persian

we built a pillar of wisdom, of thought.

We wrote, masters of the Persian manner,

even Yunus Emre fell into Iran.

Persian, too, was worthy of praise and faith,

its spirit steeped in the Quranic tongue.

That is, the soul of our tongue is divine,

our language shines, today, eternally.

Then, from Europe, came civilization,

all the sciences, developed with time,

written with Arabic and Persian words,

and helped to forge a powerful language.

It is said: “write for the nation,” very good!

You vouch for the whole nation, all of us.

The whole nation are farmers, then, villagers?

Today the enlightened youth, rare in their time,

are they not the face of the future, these youth?

Is it right to trade them for the masses?

The youth must be enlightened for their sake,

just as flowers take life from the sunlight.

The political elitism of Ali Ekrem’s position is evident; the latter lines, in particular, drip with condescension. But the shape of his argument is laid out well enough: the capaciousness of Ottoman, its borrowings from other tongues, is not a weakness but a strength. It is what makes the language able to synthesize the immanence of the divine with the epistemology of modern science and is key to its future adaptability. He then moves on to an historicist defense of Arabic and Persian compounds, listing them one by one, as though their beauty and value were innate and obvious:

Shall they say, “big gate” for “Bâb-ı Alî”?

Or shall “Saray-ı Humâyûn” be, to / us, a foreign word? […]

Finally, he criticizes the radical linguistic break advocated by Seyfettin, instead proposing that his “New Language” simply exist as an aesthetic among other aesthetics:

I love this style; you write for the masses.

A bare tongue with plain melodies… Fine, but

don’t touch this tongue’s sharpness of expression,

don’t touch its harmony, its bravery!

Don’t touch it, else our great works be lost,

as our language ends, so will our future.

To return to the beginning. It is not that the three incidents recounted above weigh in favor of one side or another. Rather they testify, I think, to the ways in which the terms of the argument between Ali Ekrem and Ömer Seyfettin are still with us—how they still structure our relation to language. Does the vitality of language depend upon exclusivity or openness? What are the boundaries, where one language ends and another begins? How does one deal with the heritage of words which have long since lost their old usage, their old contexts, to the point of untranslatability? Etymology, Ali Ekrem might have said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake: the drive to sort words by lineage as if they belonged to different species. Yet even as Ali Ekrem’s rhetoric is rooted in a kind of classist contempt for the “masses,” the xenophobic aspect of Ömer Seyfettin’s legacy is also clear. As has been said elsewhere, the use of slang by the poor or a refugee marks them as uneducated, unwilling to assimilate to the norm; the use of slang by an expatriate marks them as fluent. And the embarrassment of the chattering classes at Boğaziçili Türkçesi and plaza dili suggests this anxiety is hardly limited to nativist rhetoric but reflects a broader conception of “real language” as something exceedingly brittle, easily betrayable, quickly lost. Certainly, in the case of minoritarian or indigenous languages threatened by setter colonialism, cultural genocide, and the hegemony of a globalized English, this sense of fragility may be apt; indeed, it may be critical for political mobilization. Yet if the linguistic condition of the twenty-first century is, as scholars like David Gramling and Yasemin Yıldız argue, to be one of “post-monolingualism”—that is, of formerly discrete, spoken languages chopped up and reassembled by the global movements of diaspora and the pervasive effects of online communication—then perhaps Ali Ekrem was rather perceptive in declaring Ottoman, in all its impossibility, as the language of the future. In that case, one may face a choice: to either struggle for a sense of authentic self within an endless realm of possible words and expressions, like Ahmed Cemil from Mâi ve Siyah, or else to throw up one’s hands in despair and confusion like Bihruz. For my part, I’m still stuck on another choice—whether my towel should read hayalperest or merdümgîriz.

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In the film and in Dickens’ parable, Ebenezer Scrooge recovers his generous spirit through the visits of three ghosts: Christmas past, present, and future. Given the particularly dire state of Scrooge’s miserly soul, it is striking that his deceased colleague Jacob Marley waited for seven years to enlist the phantoms’ aid on the anniversary of his death, Christmas Eve. It is as if the holiday is a weak point in the flow of time where spirits might enter, and happy memories might become tangible once again. Scrooge relives his own past, pleasant and otherwise, and learns how to “keep Christmas.” And as a song (“Barbara Allen”) featured in the film worms its way into my ear for its annual winter residence, I am reminded that holidays are circular periods where the same tastes and sights and sounds recur, bringing the present in harmony with the past.

As the season of winter festivities approaches, I want to offer a taste of how the Byzantines (specifically the imperial household) celebrated holidays. As a kid I bemoaned the innovation of the turducken, and as an adult, I keep this egregious breach of protocol in living memory by recalling it at least once during Christmas dinner. I am, thus, very sympathetic towards Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, who in the mid-tenth century assembled a collection of directions for court ceremonial in the hope that they would always be carried out properly. The Book of Ceremonies details many different ceremonies, from court appointments to funerals. It also records what should be done for church feasts and holidays. For example, the Byzantine emperors celebrated the Twelve Days of Christmas (the period that runs from Christmas day to Epiphany) with twelve full days of feasting. The Kletorologion, an earlier text included in Constantine’s collection, directs who should come to dinner and where they should sit, or more accurately, where they should recline.[1]Liudprand of Cremona, an ambassador to Constantine VII’s court, records that during the Christmas feasts, guests in the Hall of Nineteen Couches reclined for their meal. He describes the use of golden platters so heavy that they had to be lifted onto the table with a pulley system.[2] Harun Ibn Yahya, a Syrian hostage living in the court in the late ninth or earlytenth century, also mentions golden platters so large they had to be wheeled in.[3]

Figure 2. For a sense of the luxurious table settings used in the palace, we might look at the collection of liturgical chalices from the Attarouthi Treasure (silver and gilt silver, 500–650, The Metropolitan Museum of Art).

The feasts also included entertainment. Harun recounts the playing of the organ, which was used in many imperial acclamations.[1]Liudprand details acrobats climbing up and moving around a pole balanced on a man’s forehead.[2] The Book of Ceremonies directs that on the ninth day of Christmas, the “Gothic Game” should be played after the jugglers depart. The game consisted of members of the chariot racing factions, the Blues and Greens, dressed as “Goths” (in furs turned inside out so that hair faced outward). The “Goths” ran in circles shouting “Toultoul!”and in turn the declaimers of the factionsrecited an acrostic in honor of the emperor. The words used by both the “Goths” and the poets included a mix of Latin and Germanic words that gave the game its name.[3] Though the instructions for the Gothic Game are impenetrable to me, the yearly dance between Latin and Germanic syllables reinscribes Constantinople’s connection to Rome.

Figure 3. This image of the Last Supper from Sant’ApollinareNuovo (sixth century, Ravenna) gives us an idea of the Roman form of dining while reclined. The Byzantines continued this tradition on certain festive occasions like Christmas.

The great feasts of the major holidays may have included raucous acclamations, acrobats, and an impressive spread of delicacies, but the Byzantine elites also marked days with simpler commemorations. On the Thursday before Easter, for instance, the emperor visited the homes for the aged and then, after the liturgy, he gave high-level courtiers two apples and a stick of cinnamon.[1] During my research on court ceremonial, I have often been struck by this offering, which appears simple in contrast to more typical distribution of imperial largess through gold or sumptuous fabrics. Cinnamon was a highly valued spice, but such a small amount, along with two apples, resists an easy transformation into the showy displays of status enabled by gold and silks. The gift seems meant for private, personal consumption, and therefore, it appears more intimate. Though I do not know what the courtiers did with their gifts, apple and cinnamon also evokes a combination of flavors with which we are familiar today. It is a taste and scent that I associate with warm social occasions throughout the colder months.

The Book of Ceremonies also records more idiosyncratic celebrations. It notes that for the Triumph of Orthodoxy (celebrating the end of Iconoclasm), the patriarch Theophylact would add incense to the celebration. He also had sweetmeats at the chapel of St. Theophylact with the ruler and his invited guests.[1] Among the often-impersonal directions, this record stands out as a moment of personalized commemoration—one that the patriarch shared with others through sweet treats. A similar tradition is kept at ANAMED, where fellows often leave small delicacies near the coffee and tea station after research trips or in celebration of the holidays of our many countries.

Beyond my admiration for his employment of good smells and tastes, Theophylact’s efforts to enrich the commemoration of a historical moment speak to me. As an art historian, I often visit the objects or places that I study. Sometimes I do so with friends or colleagues, and we discuss what we are seeing. For instance, two intrepid fellows and I made a trip to the monastery and likely burial site of another patriarch, Ignatios, on his feast day (October 23).

Figure 4. Fellows visit the KüçükyalıArkeopark on October 23, the feast day of Patriarch Ignatios. Photo by Artemis Papatheodorou.

At the Satyros Monastery, now KüçükyalıArkeopark, we were amazed by the size of the complex as we walked around its border. We told stories about Ignatios, informally recounting his life. I left purple flowers. I cannot quite articulate why it seemed important to me to go on the day of Ignatios’ feast. Nothing magical happened. We were the only ones there. I think perhaps it stems from the desire to allow the past to guide our steps a bit, in this case through the choice of a date. The choice transformed the trip into something of a small pilgrimage that devoted a little time in the present to a long-dead saint. Even when not commemorating a specific day or person, looking closely at objects and spaces and the stories and histories we tell each other in their company would seem to bear an invitation for the ghost of the past to pay us a visit. After all, Jacob Marley first appeared through a door knocker.

Figure 5. Jacob Marley in Scrooge’s door knocker, Scrooge (A Christmas Carol) (Hurst, 1951).

[1]Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall, eds., The Book of Ceremonies: With the Greek edition of the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn, 1829), vol. 2 (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2012; reprint, paperback by Leiden: Brill, 2017), Bk. 2, ch. 52, 741–759.

[2]Bishop of Cremona Liudprand, The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. Paolo Squatriti (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007), Bk. 6, ch. 8, pp. 199–200.

[3]Alexei Vasiliev, "Harun-Ibn-Yahya and His Description of Constantinople," Seminarium Kondakovianum V(1932): 157; Andrew Dalby, Flavours of Byzantium  (Totnes: Prospect, 2003), 116–119.

[4]Vasiliev, "Harun-Ibn-Yahya and His Description of Constantinople," 157–158.

[5]Liudprand, Complete Works, Bk. 6, ch. 9, p. 200.

[6]Moffatt and Tall, Book of Ceremonies, vol. 1, Bk. 1, ch. 83, pp. 381–386.

TİEM is located on the Hippodrome, facing the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, in the İbrahim Pasha Palace (Figure 1), named thus because it was once the residence of Ottoman grand vizier Pargalı İbrahim Pasha (d. 1536). The museum is one of the locations where I have been conducting research for my project at ANAMED (Figure 2). TİEM has been in this location since 1983. Previously, since its foundation in 1914 (until 1927 under the name “Evkaf-ı İslamiye Müzesi”), it had been located in the imaret of the sixteenth-century Süleymaniye Mosque complex, as seen on the title page of a museum guide published in 1939 (Figure 3).

Figure 2: The author heading to a research appointment at TİEM in September 2022.

Figure 3: Title page of the 1939 TİEM guidebook.

Much of the collection consists of objects that were taken from former Ottoman lands or were already located in historical monuments within present-day Turkey and beyond. In the early twentieth century, in part because of increased looting to supply the European art market with Islamic objects then fashionable among collectors, objects were removed from monuments across the Ottoman Empire and put aside for the museum founded in 1914. The history of the museum is told in the catalog Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi 100 Yıl Önce (Figure 4), published for the museum’s one-hundredth anniversary in 2014. The catalog shows records that document from where objects were removed at which dates, and also notes that some objects were exchanged with the collections of Topkapı Palace, which is effectively the historical art collection (containing everything from arms and armor to china and kaftans) of the Ottoman dynasty.

Figure 4: Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi 100 Yıl Önce, 100 Yıl Sonra (Ankara, 2014).

Figure 5: Partial view of the room at TİEM holding Ottoman objects.

The museum is arranged partially chronologically, starting with early Islamic art, and partially by dynasties and geographies. Thus, dynasties of Iran and central Asia such as the Great Seljuks, Timurids, Safavids, and Qajars are arranged in chronological order in adjacent rooms. The exhibition culminates in two rooms dedicated to Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman art (Figure 5), which form strong points of the collection. During our visit, we discussed different types of tile-making techniques in the Ottoman Empire, the issue of distinguishing “Byzantine” and “Islamic” ceramics in medieval Anatolia, and molded Seljuk ceramic vessels. We were also intrigued by the various types of lighting devices that were made for mosques: brass candlesticks that ranged from 25 to nearly 90 cm in height and held wax candles, transparent glass lamps with enameled and gilded decoration that held olive oil, and pierced metal lanterns are only some of the objects we saw and took as the starting point of a discussion of lighting in Byzantine and Islamic sacred buildings. Relatedly, the large carpet collection led to questions on the isolation and heating of rooms—in the İbrahim Pasha Palace, large fireplaces would have helped with heating and could have been the source for gleaming coals to be placed in portable braziers (Figure 6). Bidding farewell to the resident cats (Figure 7), we then went on to visits of the Cistern of Philoxenos (Binbirdirek Sarnıcı) and Topkapı Palace.

Figure 6: A fireplace in the İbrahim Pasha Palace.