#anamed

However, after a certain hour (usually around 3:30 am or so), the ANAMED building seems to fall into a sudden state of calm. Then, only a gentle whistle from the elevators and, occasionally, alley cats fighting in the streets can be heard. That is the moment when bats, introverts, and other eerie creatures of the night are allowed to emerge from the shadows and finally live their moment of glory. It is also, undeniably, the most creative and productive time in the study room on the 3rd floor. Unfortunately, I have always found it extremely difficult to persuade other fellows of that.

ANAMED: the study room at night

As a Byzantine art historian and a resolute night owl—the two attributes being concurrent, but apparently not consequential—sometimes I love indulging myself with the idea that artists in Byzantium might have shared my personal preference for nocturnal atmospheres. Indeed, for a culture that had developed such a highly sophisticated aesthetic based on the symbolic and soteriological values of light, Byzantium seems to have also cultivated a surprisingly serene relationship with the visualization of the night. Truth be told, Byzantine religious iconography used to associate darkness with some of the most tragic episodes in the Christological narrative, such as the Agony in the Garden and the Crucifixion. In a famous sixth-century representation of Gethsemane from the Rossano Gospels, Christ’s loneliness is emphasized by the presence of a dark background, and the colors are so dense and deep that they permanently stained the parchment on the verso of the same folio.

Rossano Calabro (CS, Italy), Museo Arcivescovile, Codex Purpureus Rossanensis: Agony in the Garden 

The night sky, however, often played a positive role in Christian imagery, functioning as a dramatic tool to highlight (pun intended) some crucial moments of the divine revelation and to express the universal potency of God’s nature. The star of Bethlehem descends from a deep blue hemicycle to brighten the darkness of the cave in Byzantine Nativity scenes; golden stars decorate the maphorion of the Theotokos in numerous icons, mosaics, and wall paintings; and in an early seventh-century icon at Mount Sinai, a gleaming, starry night sky surrounds the austere figure of Christ as the Ancient of Days.

Sinai, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, Icon: Christ as the Ancient of Days

Byzantine secular arts also seem to reveal a fascination with the night. Much of this attitude was due to the robust Greco-Roman cosmological tradition, which the Byzantines constantly updated and reinterpreted in their own ways. The luxurious Vat. gr. 1291, a ninth-century copy of the Procheiroi Kanones by Ptolemy, has preserved a calendar table in which the hours of the night, depicted as dark-skinned female busts, surround the chariot of the sun, providing the necessary counterpart to daylight. Another folio in the same manuscript shows a majestic astrological representation of the night sky, in which numerous classical personifications of constellations, delicately sketched in white paint, emerge from a deep blue background.

Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS gr. 1291: Chariot of the Sun/Constellations

Ancient archetypes contributed to religious iconography, too, and led to some very eclectic (and sometimes curious) results. The well-known Paris Psalter (BNF gr. 139), produced in the mid-tenth century for the court of Constantinople, has preserved some quintessential examples of the enthusiasm for classical imagery that characterized aristocratic artistic production during the so-called Macedonian Renaissance. Among the plethora of Hellenizing personifications that accompany various characters from the Old Testament we can find the elegant Nyx, the personification of the night, depicted as one of the three protagonists in the episode of the Vision of Isaiah. She is clad in a long flowing peplum and her airy blue veil, decorated with little white dots like a starry sky, floats over her head while she gently moves away from the scene, pointing a torch to the ground. The sense of the whole composition is easy to understand: Isaiah’s vision takes place at a very specific moment when the night is slowly making way for the dawn of a new day, Orthros, represented as a cheerful young boy holding a flaming torch.

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS gr. 139: Vision of Isaiah

The representation of the night sky as a precious veil is also included in one of the most notable masterpieces of late Byzantine art in Constantinople. In the Last Judgment scene preserved in the parekklesion of the Kariye Museum (ex-Chora Monastery), visitors can still see the representation of an angel wrapping the starry sky in a roll as if it were an expensive silk fabric, similar to those for which the Byzantine capital was celebrated all over Europe. I have always loved to think of this scene not as an act of destruction but, rather, as an attentive gesture of conservation. The angel is not tearing the sky apart: he is carefully folding and storing away a valuable artifact that is not needed anymore. Another example of Byzantine nyctophilia? Perhaps….

At one point, it probably was, but we have to go elsewhere for the amenities of normal life – groceries, the gym, cafes that aren’t mobbed, streets you can actually walk down. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—there are many benefits to living here. Personally, anyway, I’ve never lived in such a central, connected, or exciting part of a city. Still, it can be nice sometimes to get out of Beyoğlu and explore parts of Istanbul which are calmer, and which still have the feel of a neighborhood.

This weekend, I explored Fener and Balat, the old Jewish and Armenian / Greek Orthodox quarters of the city, about two miles up the Golden Horn from Eminönü. According to the Guardian, Balat has been the city’s Jewish quarter since the Byzantine period, while Fener was host to the Greek Orthodox community for even longer—the Fener Rum Lisesi, now housed in an imposing brick building a big up the hill, was founded in the fifteenth century. Both neighborhoods grew somewhat dilapidated during the second half of the twentieth century. Unsurprisingly, though—given that it’s being written up in the Guardian—Fener-Balat is beginning to gentrify. In 2003, the European Union began a restoration and revitalization program in the neighborhood. Many of the Ottoman houses now bear plaques testifying to the EU’s involvement.

Even the houses which remain unrenovated are beautiful. The facades are painted in bright colors, or covered in patterned tiles, and the houses all have window-balconies overhanging the street.

Some of the streets are color-coordinated while others are eclectic.

There are coffee shops on almost every corner, as well as cafes selling Turkish breakfast and some of the best pide I’ve ever tasted!

On Saturday there were at least two antique shops running small-stakes auctions, with participants overflowing into the streets. Further down the block were artists’ spaces and eclectic antique-store-cafes. But go just a little bit up the hill and the commercial buzz died down, with the loudest sound left the children playing in the street. A few blocks to the left, and you encounter a huge neoclassical building—an unused Greek high school.

Turn left again and go a few more blocks and you’re in the park by the Golden Horn— a few couples sitting on benches, children playing, and old men fishing. The Haliç line of the municipal ferries stops in Fener, providing relatively easy (and traffic-free!) access to Karaköy, Üsküdar, most importantly for me, the Ottoman archives.

Perhaps most miraculously of all, the traffic in Fener-Balat is so minimal that I was repeatedly able to stand in the middle of the street, gawking and searching for the best angle to take a photo! I’m not sure you could say as much about anywhere else in Istanbul.

“Benim yolum başka. Seni tanıdıktan sonra anladım bunu. Sevgi de yetmiyormuş. Çok eskiden rastlaşacaktık….”

Umutsuz aşkları anlatmak için en sık kullanılan sözlerden biridir “Vesikalı Yârim” filminde geçen bu replik. Birbirine denk düşmeyen, ayrı yolların yolcusu olan âşıklar, birlikte hiç yazamayacakları bir romanın kollarına düşmemek için çırpınsalar da nafiledir çırpınışları. Lakin bazen hani talih güler ya, ayrı dünyaların insanları olan âşıklar türlü zorluklara, engellemelere, kötü adam ve kadınlara rağmen kavuşurlar ve masal gibi bir aşk yaşarlar bu dünyadan göçmeden önce. İşte böyle masalsı bir aşk bundan tam 1500 yıl önce İmparatorluk’un başkentinde, Makedonya’nın Tauresium köyünde doğan fakat talihinin Konstantinopolis’e savurduğu genç bir adamla, kimi tarihçiye göre Kıbrıs, kimilerine göre ise Suriye doğumlu güzeller güzeli bir kadın arasında yaşanmıştı. Bugün Ravenna’da San Vitale Bazilikası’nda karşı karşıya bakan bu âşıkların adları Jüstinyen ve Theodora’ydı.

Özel Bir Kadın

Jüstinyen için Tanrı’nın hediyesi olarak karşısına çıkan Theodora’nın günümüze kadar gelmiş değişik hayat hikâyeleri vardır. On ikinci yüzyılda yaşamış kronik yazarı Suriyeli Michael’e göre kendisi gibi Monofizit görüşe sahip olan Theodora, bir rahibin kızıydı. Dönemin tarihçisi Prokopius’a göre ise hikâye başkaydı: Konstantinopolis’te altıncı yüzyılda çok meşhur olan araba yarışları dört takım arasında yapılıyordu. Lakin en meşhur iki takım (Maviler ve Yeşiller) arasındaki rekabet, günümüzün Panathinaikos – Olympiakos karşılaşmalarını aratmıyordu. Prokopius’un Anekdota’sına göre Yeşiller’in takımında ‘ayı bakıcısı’ olarak çalışan Akasius’un üç kızı vardı: Komita, Theodora ve Anastasya. Yerinde durmayan acımasız kader ağlarını örüyordu. Ne yazık ki babaları bu üç güzel kızı yetim bırakıp bu dünyadan göçüp gidince anneleri yeniden evlendi. Yeni kocası ev yönetimine katılır, hayvanlara bakar diye düşünen genç kadın zamanla işlerin umduğu gibi gitmediğine şahit oldu. Yeni eşi Yeşiller’in yanında işini kaybettikten sonra aile sefaletle mücadele etti ve bir zaman sonra yardım eli rakip takım Maviler’den geldi. Aile kolay kolay toparlanamasa da sonunda şeytanın bacağını kırdı. Nasıl mı? Dünyalar güzeli Komita sahneye çıkıp şehrin en ünlü fahişelerinden biri olunca. Ablası Komita kadar yetenekli olmasa da Theodora da ablasının izinden gitti ve sahneye çıkıp kısa zamanda “ordu kalıntısı” denen cinsten fahişe ya da “vesikalı” oldu. Çalıştıkları sahnelerde, gittikleri yemekli davetlerde iki kardeş vücutlarını sunarak erkekleri güzellikleriyle mest edip, baştan çıkardı. Theodora, bir zaman sonra günümüzde “burlesque” olarak adlandırılan gösteriler hazırlamaya başladı tiyatroda. Çok zeki olması, keskin nükteleri ile sıyrıldı diğer oyuncuların arasından. Çapkındı elbette, ona âşık olan erkeklerle alay etmeyi sever, ne kendinden ne mesleğinden ne vücudundan utanırdı. Yaşadığı dönemde oyunculuk fahişelikle aynı anlama gelmekte olduğu için toplum tarafından hor görülse de işini bırakmayı bir an bile düşünmedi.

Hayat Theodora’ya küçük sürprizler hazırlıyordu bittabi. Öyle bir an geldi ki özgürlüğüne düşkün, çapkınlar çapkını Theodora mesleğini, ailesini, anılarını Konstantinopolis’te bırakarak aşkının peşinden gitti, ya da sadece yeni bir hayatın… Onu sahneden çekip alan kişi Hekebolos, Libya'daki Pentapolis kentinin yönetimine atanan valiydi ve nüfuslu bir adamdı. Lakin “metres” hayatına daha fazla dayanamadı Theodora, kimsenin prangasına tahammülü yoktu, içine özgürlük korkusu düşmüştü çoktan. Tası tarağı topladığı gibi önce İskenderiye’ye, sonra başkente geri döndü, ve tabii sahnelere… Sahnelerin tozunu attıran Theodora’nın yolu bu sefer de hayatının aşkı Jüstinyen’le kesişti.  

Şanslı Bir Adam

Flavius Petrus Sabbatius ismiyle Konstantinopolis’e gelen genç adamın hayatı, dayısı Justin tarafından evlatlık alınmasıyla değişmişti. Konstantinopolis’te aldığı hukuk ve teoloji eğitimden sonra Exkoubitores (saray muhafızı) olarak çalışan genç adam, İmparator I. Anastasios 518'de öldüğünde imparator olan dayısının yanında yer aldı. Zaman içerisinde Taht Naibi ilan edilen Jüstinyen, konsül olarak da İmparatorluğa hizmet etti. İşte Doğu Roma İmparatorluğu’nun rakipsiz varisi Jüstinyen, yaklaşık olarak 522’de Theodora ile tanıştığında ona deli gibi âşık oldu, sevdiği kadını yanına aldı ve imparator olacağı günü bekledi. 527’de imparator I. Justin ölünce bu iki genç insanın kaderi ve İmparatorluğun da kaderi sonsuza kadar değişti… Corpus Juris Civilis ile hukuk birliği sağlayan Jüstinyen, Kuzey Afrika, İtalya, İspanya, Akdeniz Adaları’nı Konstantinopolis’teki Roma İmparatorluğu’na bağlayarak, kiliseler, su kemerleri inşa ederek, Roma İmparatorluğu’nun ‘restorasyonu’nu (renovatio imperii) ve en önemlisi birliğini sağlamaya çalışarak tarihe adını yazdırdı..

Roma İmpatorluğu’nu yönetmek ateşten bir gömlek gibiydi Jüstinyen ve Theodora için. Bu zorlu yolculuk tozpembe başlamamıştı elbette. Önlerinde aşklarını yaşamalarına değil lakin evlenmelerine ve Theodora’nın “Augusta” olarak Jüstinyen’in yanında mor pelerini ile arz-ı endam etmesine engel olacak durum ve kişiler vardı. Karşılaştıkları ilk sorun Theodora’nın “gayri meşru” kızının durumuydu. Her zaman Theodora’nın kızı olarak kalacaktı ve asla bir prenses olamayacaktı. Fakat Theodora’nın zavallı minik kızından daha ciddi bir sorun vardı: Roma yasaları. Jüstinyen imparator olmadan önce, henüz bir senatörken, evlilikleri senatörlerin sahneye çıkan kadınlarla evlenmelerini yasaklayan kanuna takılmıştı. Ancak I. Justin kadim kanunu kaldırdıktan sonra ve tövbe eden oyuncuların senatörler ile evlenmelerine izin vermesiyle bu sorun çözülmüştü.

Ve hikâyedeki kötü kadın: Prenses Euphemia. “Barbar” bir köle iken Justin ile evlenen, tarihçi Prokopius tarafından eğitimsizliği ile küçük görülen Euphemia, Jüstinyen için hiç uygun bulmamıştı kirli bir geçmişe sahip olan Theodora’yı! Bir Bizans dedikodusuna göre de Euphemia da sahneye çıkan bir oyuncuydu ve Theodora ona hatırlamak istemediği geçmişini hatırlatıyordu. John Barker’a göre önce yasaya daha sonra da prenses Euphemia’nın vetosuna takılan gençlerin izdivacı, Euphemia’nın Hakk’ın rahmetine kavuşmasından sonra 525’te vuku bulmuştu.

İmparator Jüstinyen  ve maiyeti, başpiskopos Maximian, and Praetorian muhafızlar San Vitale Bazilikası Ravenna, İtalya.

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2012/byzantium-and-islam/blog/topical-essays/posts/san-vitale

İsyan Günlerinde Aşk

Tam huzura erecekken âşıkları sınayan son darbe ise Thedora’nın gönülden bağlı olduğu Maviler’den ve Theodora’nın babasının bir zamanlar hizmetinde bulunduğu Yeşiller’den gelmişti. 13 Ocak günü kalabalık ve öfkeli Konstantinopolis halkı devlet makamlarınca verilen ağır cezalara daha fazla dayanamadı ve Maviler-Yeşiller önderliğinde isyan ateşini Hipodrom’da yaktı. “Nika” sesleriyle galeyana gelen halk Ayasofya’nın yerinde olan bazilikayı yerle bir etti ve Büyük Saray’a yöneldi. Halk eski İmparator Anastasius'un yeğenlerinden birini İmparator olarak ilan edince durum iyice ciddileşti. Theodora ise sanki kaybedeceği bir tahtı, unvanı yokmuşçasına “benim kaybedecek bir şeyim yok” diyerek, soğukkanlılıkla onca devlet görevlisi ve Jüstinyen’in karşısında şu konuşmayı yaptı:

"Belki kadınların, erkekler önünde konuşması ve korkaklara cesaret vermesi doğru değildir. Ama, tehlike anında herkes elinden geleni yapmalıdır. Bence, bu durumda kaçmamız bize bir şey kazandırmaz. Kaçarak kurtulsak bile bunun sonu yoktur. Nasıl olsa dünyaya gelen kişi ölecektir. Hükümdar olan kimse sürgünde yaşayamaz. Ey İmparator! Kaçarak kurtulmak istiyorsan, bunda bir güçlük yok. Hazinen var, gemilerin hazır bekliyor. Ama sarayından ayrıldığın zaman hayatını da yitirmiş olacaksın. Güveneceğin bir yere kaçtığın zaman ölümü güvenliğe tercih edip etmeyeceğini düşün. Bana gelince, eskilerin de dediği gibi erguvani pelerin kefenim olsun!”

Mor pelerinini kefen yapmaya hazır olan Theodora’nın uzattığı eli bırakmaz Jüstinyen. Bu konuşmanın ardından ünlü komutanları Belisarius, kahyası ve generali Narses ve Mundus’u, Hipodrom’da toplanan isyancıların üzerine gönderen Jüstinyen’in ellerine, dönem kaynaklarına göre 30 ila 35 bin civarından insanın kanı bulaşır, isyancıların elebaşı ve bilumum çapulcu idam ettirilir, pek çok mülke el konulur, böylece isyan da son bulur.

Detorakēs, Theocharēs Eustratiou. Hagia Sophia: ho naos tēs Hagias tou Theou Sophias = Hagia Sophia : the church of the Holy Wisdom of God. Athēna: Ephesos, 2004.

Talihsiz Güzel: Amalasuntha

Seven ne yapmaz, hele kıskanç bir kadınsa… Theodora Jüstinyen’in emrindeki herkesten çok kıskanıyordu sevdiği adamı ve elinden geldiğince Kapadokyalı John gibi düşmanlarından koruyordu. Ancak bu kez Theodora’nın karşısındaki rakip yabana atılacak gibi bir biri değildi. Çünkü Amalasuntha ünlü Ostrogotların Kralı Theodorik’in kızıydı. Eşi vefat edince küçük oğlu tahta geçmişti ve kendisi de naibe olmuştu. Eski Roma kültürüyle eğitilmiş olan güzel Kraliçe oğlu Athalaric’i de aynı şekilde yetiştirmeye çalışıyordu. Lakin soylu Gothlar genç Kraliçe’nin yönetiminden huzursuzdu ve ciddi bir tehdit oluşturuyorlardı. Tehditlere daha fazla dayanamayan Kraliçe, Jüstinyen’den yardım istemiş ve Bizans'a göç etmeyi düşündüğünü söylemişti, üstelik yanında büyük Ostrogot hazinesi ile beraber! Theodora gibi eli kolu uzun, her yerde gözü kulağı olan, hatta geceleri bile uyumayan, “vampir gibi gezen (!)” İmparatoriçe’den kaçar mı böyle bir haber? Theodora’ya göre hiçbir erkek reddetmezdi böyle genç, eğitimli ve mevki sahibi bir kadını. Yılanın başını gençken ezmeli düşüncesiyle hareket eden Theodora elini çabuk tuttu, Petrus'u İtalya’ya elçi olarak gönderdi genç kadının canını alması için. Prokopius’un yazdıklarına bakacak olursak Amalasuntha’nın ölümü Theodora’nın ellerinden olmadı. Allah’ın ‘çirkin şansı’ vermediği, çekici Amalasuntha ise kuzeni Theodahad emriyle kapatıldığı hapishanesinde, banyo yaparken bir komploya kurban gitti… Jüstinyen ise ancak Amalasuntha öldürüldükten sonra Theodahad’ın karşısına çıktı ve Ostrogotlar Krallığı ile Doğu Roma İmparatorluğu arasında 535-554 döneminde sürecek uzun Gotlar Savaşı'nı başlattı.

Bir Aşkın Mirası

Bunca ölüme, entrikaya, savaş rağmen yaşadıkları dönemde yaptıkları ile birçok kişinin ahını da alsalar, Jüstinyen ve Theodora adlarını ölümsüz kılacak işler yapmaktan çekinmemişlerdi. Beşinci ve altıncı yüzyılın kronik yazarlarından Malalas’a göre çift yaşadıkları zenginliği diğer insanlarla paylaşmış ve belli bir kesimin sevgisini kazanmışlardı. Antakya’da kiliseler, hamamlar, bazilikalar yaptırmışlar, incilerle süslü haçı şehre bağış olarak göndermişlerdi. Hormisdas Sarayı’nı, 500’e yakın Monofizit rahibi İmparatoriçe’nin finansal desteği altında korumuşlardı.

Theodora ve Jüstinyen’in hiç çocuğu olmadı. Jüstinyen yeğeni II. Justin’i kendinden sonra tahta geçecek kişi olarak seçti ölmeden önce. Jüstinyen 540’larda geçirdiği vebayı da atlatmıştı sevgilisinin yanında. Çağımızın vebası olarak bilinen kanser ise Theodora’yı ayırmıştı Jüstinyen’den. Sevdiği kadının ölümünden sonra 20 yıla yakın bir süre yaşayan Jüstinyen de kendini dine, teolojiye adamıştı ölmeden önce. 565’te vefat ettiğinde bugün Fatih cami olarak bilinen Havariyyun Kilisesi’nde, adı gibi Tanrı’nın ona bahşettiği hediye olan Theodora’sının yanında sonsuzluk uykusuna daldı Büyük Jüstinyen. Bugün İtalya’nın Ravenna kentinde tıpatıp benzeyen mozaikleriyle karşılıklı bakışan Theodora ve Jüstinyen’in aşkları, isimlerinin baş harflerinden oluşan monogramlarıyla eski adı SS. Sergius ve Bacchus Kilisesi olan Küçük Ayasofya Camii’nin ve dünyanın en eski katedralinin kutsal bilgeliğinin gölgesinde, Ayasofya’nın sütun başlarında ölümsüzleşiyor ve ziyaretçilere, genç âşıklara bu imkânsız ama kaçınılmaz aşkın hikâyesini hatırlatıyor…

Ss. Sergius ve Bacchus kilisesi, Küçük Ayasofya Camii. Fotoğraf  Yard. Doç Nikos D. Kontogiannis (Koç Universitesi-Gabam) 

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Sarris, Peter. Economy and society in the age of Justinian. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.  DF568 .S37 2006  

Scott, Roger. Byzantine chronicles and the sixth century. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. DF505 .S36 2012  

On one end of the spectrum, there are the quiet neighborhood streets and hidden passageways of districts like Fener, Balat, and Cihangır. These neighborhoods are still lively, with residents going about their daily lives and the occasional tourist taking in the scenery, but these crowds are night and day when compared with the throngs of people crowding city mainstays like Galata, Sultanahmet, and Beşiktaş. These areas don’t just vibrate with life, they pound with it. Massive crowds of people stroll the famous Istiklal Caddesi every day—sometimes a trickle but mostly a deluge. Though weekday mornings feel relatively calm, punctuated by the buzzing of street cleaning machines and the footsteps of workers walking to their posts, by midday the street becomes a chaotic flood of visitors, residents, and the occasional and always unexpected vehicle. The crowds have no directionality and, if you’re trying to get somewhere quickly, you’ll find yourself dodging couples, strollers, and mopeds that are flowing both with and against you. The people of Istanbul, both permanent and temporary, flood the city with life.

But the life of Istanbul does not end with its people. Focus your eyes past the crowds and the cars and you’ll notice one of Istanbul’s most cherished demographics—the cats.

The cats of Istanbul are not simply pets or strays; they are residents that go about their daily business like any other Istanbulite. Like their human counterparts, the cats of Istanbul have neighborhood-specific cultures—some are friendly, some are skittish, and some are just plain rude. Little piles of food and miniature cat houses line the sidewalks to accommodate their wandering lifestyle, while shop owners and restaurateurs might leave their doors open a crack in case a cat feels inclined to patronize their business. Some cats avoid humans entirely, while others reciprocate these acts of care with cuddles, rodent-catching, or the simple honor of their presence. The lives of Istanbul’s cats are both independent and intertwined with the people of the city. Not entirely reliant on human care but also not entirely divorced from it either, the cats live their lives as any person would—sometimes accepting or lending help and sometimes refusing it altogether.

Photo: Street cats sit patiently waiting for fish

Less well-received are the stray dogs of Istanbul, which you’ll find either sleeping in tight little balls amongst patches of flowers and doorway nooks or leaping and rolling around with one another in moments of levity. Unlike the city’s cats, which have an air of indifference to human attention, the street dogs welcome it wholeheartedly. Show a street dog a bit of affection and you’ll have an escort all the way home. But for the most part, the dogs go about their daily lives just like everyone else—sleeping, socializing, and even commuting by metro or ferry, as is the case of world-famous street dog Boji.[1] You’re also likely to see their housed counterparts either through apartment windows or walking alongside their owners.

Photo: Street dogs playing together in Sultanahmet

While cats and dogs are amongst the most noticeable of Istanbul’s non-human occupants, you’ll also find a wide range of other residents. Look up and you’ll see the birds that roost in the city’s elaborate buildings and soar between them—the pigeons, the seagulls, and perhaps even the stray parakeet if you’re lucky. Wander along any waterway and you’ll find fishermen and seabirds working side-by-side to catch the fish that swim along the seashore, while cats linger alongside. Look a bit more closely at the water itself and you’ll observe copious amounts of jellyfish. You might even catch a glimpse of the more elusive dolphins, porpoises, seals, and whales that were once abundant in the Bosphorus. Every view, photo, or videoclip of Istanbul is teeming with animals just waiting to be spotted.

However, Istanbul is not entirely unique in this regard. While the ways in which humans and animals coexist in Istanbul are culturally and temporally specific, cities have always been home to a wide assortment of human and non-human animals interacting with one another in diverse ways. Sometimes these relationships are mutually beneficial, while other times they’re mutually or unilaterally antagonistic. Some animals are fed by humans, while others are expected to fend for themselves. Some animals are designated as “wild,” some “domestic,” and still others only temporarily “tamed.” Beyond mere domestication, sometimes specific animals are even given a sort of “personhood.” Whatever the specific dynamics of these relationships, and despite the tendency of modern scholarship and media to sanitize cities of their non-human occupants, the co-existence of humans and animals is clearly a foundational feature of urban life. While you might find conflicting opinions on Istanbul’s other animal residents, most would agree that an Istanbul without cats is not really Istanbul at all.

Photo: Fishermen and seagulls work together to catch fish at Galata Bridge

Within the world’s first cities, on which my own research focuses, diverse human and animal communities would have coexisted at an unprecedented scale. While you can easily observe the types of human-animal relationships and interactions that structure modern Istanbul by walking its streets and speaking to its human residents, it is much harder to reconstruct the ways in which these relationships impacted the development of the world’s first cities and, subsequently, ancient urban life overall. My own research pursues a combination of archaeological, historical, and iconographic evidence to better understand the relationships between humans and animals that structured the Bronze Age city of Hattuša (ca. 2000–1200 BC), which was both one of Anatolia’s first cities and the first imperial capital of Anatolia. While Hattuša was not nearly the size of modern Istanbul, many of the types of human-animal interactions that take place within Istanbul would have also taken place in and around this ancient city. In addition to those animals and relationships described above, Hattuša would have been packed with all manner of livestock, including sheep, goats, cows, pigs, and horses. Archaeological and historical evidence even suggest that the city occasionally hosted wild predators, such as lions, leopards, and bears, much like the menageries of Ottoman Istanbul. During my time as a PhD Fellow at ANAMED, I endeavor to reveal the details of this multispecies landscape by analyzing the animal bones recovered during excavation of this ancient city and piecing together what life was like for these early urbanites. By reconceptualizing modern and ancient cities as multispecies landscapes, modern and ancient cities alike become more realistic and inherently complex environments, where social life is shaped by these multifaceted interactions. One need only look around on an average stroll through Istanbul to recognize this diversity.

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Reference

Imamoğlu, Ekrem. [@ekrem_imamoglu]. (2022, January 11). Boji’nin artık rahatlıkla dolaşabileceği, özgürce koşabileceği bir yuvası var. İstanbul’un dünyaca meşhur köpeği Boji’yi sahiplenen iş insanı Ömer Koç’a teşekkürler. Boji’nin, ona zarar vermek isteyen insanlardan uzak, korunaklı, dilediği gibi koşturabileceği bir yuvası olacak. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/ekrem_imamoglu/status/1480952406997409799?s=20&t=lxvrsqmuEa5lC2FhjnNdeg

The city must have changed quite a bit since the last time I visited. For one thing, two of its main Byzantine sites, the Hagia Sophia and the Chora Monastery, have been turned into mosques again, after decades of serving as museums. One of the most visible changes accompanying these conversions has been the installation of motorized curtains in front of some of the city’s most important Byzantine mosaics. They now vanish from view for considerable spans of time each day. The ideological symbolism of such acts of removal can hardly be missed.

Turkish politics of course have no monopoly on the removal of images as a form of political or ideological messaging. And these acts are often much more permanent than just hiding a depiction behind a piece of fabric. In Byzantine history, religious images came under attack several times, especially during the Iconoclasm of the 8th and 9th centuries. But even beyond that, the elimination of inconvenient works of art always remained a tool in the political arsenal. The practice of damnatio memoriae might come to mind, which entailed the erasure of names and portraits of disgraced politicians from public monuments. One instance comes to us through the writings of Niketas Choniates. In his account of the reign of Andronikos I Komnenos, the infamous 12th century emperor not only orders the murder of his predecessor’s wife, Maria of Antioch, but also has public paintings of her altered to make her look like a shriveled old hag. Still unsatisfied, he later wants them completely removed or replaced by his own visage. His spiteful triumph over Maria is short-lived, however, as his own violent demise was followed in turn by a similar round of damnatio memoriae.

The fall of Andronikos and his portraits is echoed throughout history in many places. Pharaoh Akhenaten’s radical religious reforms netted him the posthumous defacement of many of his public images. Grūtas Park in Lithuania is populated by the toppled monuments of Communist thinkers and politicians, serving as a stark reminder of the paradigm shift that was the fall of the Soviet Union. Pictures of Saddam Hussein’s collapsing statue on Baghdad’s Firdos Square went around the world in the wake of the Second Persian Gulf War. Just this year Black Lives Matter demonstrations resulted in the defacing and even removal of monuments honoring slave traders, Confederate soldiers, and colonialists throughout North America and Europe.

2) Saint Cornelius the Centurion overcomes pagan idols, Vat. Gr. 1613, p. 125

Paradoxically, the erasure of a memorial only works as a statement as long as both the depicted and the destroyed depiction remain part of collective memory. As the depicted transforms into something that is overcome by society, the destruction of the depiction becomes a symbol for this overcoming. To reinforce this, acts of iconoclasm are often turned into powerful images themselves. The toppling of pagan idols was a standard component of Byzantine saintly iconography. More recently Daesh widely disseminated videos of the destruction of cultural artifacts through its online propaganda.

Understanding this dynamic might also help to explain why many acts of damnatio memoriae remained seemingly incomplete. The church of San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna preserves one such example. It had originally been built as the palatial chapel of the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great at the beginning of the 6th century. A depiction of his palace can still be seen in a wall mosaic at the western end of the nave. It is an empty palace though, with just lonely curtains swinging between its many columns. Only closer inspection reveals that this cannot always have been the case. On many of the columns one may spy a disembodied hand or an arm. These once belonged to the Gothic courtiers inhabiting the palace, their ghostlike visages still faintly visible in outline here and there between the columns. The mosaic was altered after the troops of emperor Justinian I conquered Ravenna, and the handover of the formerly Arian church to the Nicaean congregation. Maybe the Byzantine craftsmen left the removal of the palatial figures purposefully unfinished, small reminders of the victories of Roman arms over the Goths and Orthodox Christianity over the heretical Arians. Thereby they turned the image itself into a lasting monument to its own destruction.

3) Detail from the Palace Mosaic in San Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna

4) #GoodbyeLooser tweeted by @paulandstorm showing an altered press photo from Getty Images taken on September 15th, 2017

Modern internet culture is usually a lot more volatile than Byzantine art, but we can find some parallels here as well. On November 6th, 2020, the twitter-account @paulandstorm tweeted a seemingly innocuous picture of a little boy mowing the lawn in front of the White House. More observant viewers might notice some strange shadows, tell-tale signs of image alteration. But it is only knowledge of the unaltered original that gives the image its punch. It once showed none other than US-president Donald Trump, apparently yelling something at the boy. The picture had been taken in 2017, and its comedic potential had soon ensured its wide dissemination through social media. But three years later, just when the reality of Trump’s election loss began to dawn on people, his looming departure from office is most forcefully visualized by having him simply vanish from the picture. Finally, the boy can mow that lawn undisturbed.

Seeing all this, it might seem that image removal always has triumphalist connotations, with the image itself as the defeated other. But art historians must be cautious about interpreting all man-made damage to an image in this way. In some cases, these might even attest to diametrically opposed attitudes. Wandering through Cappadocia one can encounter a wealth of Byzantine paintings, some meticulously restored but many others in rather poor condition. If left unprotected, they are often covered in a layer of soot and bear countless scratches and graffiti. In some cases this damage might have been intended to banish the image’s idolatrous power. In many others, it probably stems from simple indifference towards these works of art. But in still other cases, quite paradoxically, are vestiges of an intense admiration towards the portrayed holy figures: graffiti begging for the protection of the saints, smut from devotional candles placed in front of the holiest icons, accretions of bodily oils built up from adoring hands or lips. Sometimes, devotion proves to be just as destructive as enmity or indifference.

5) Damaged Icon of Christ, Dumbarton Oaks MS 3, BZ.1962.35 fol. 39r; Kathryn Rudy recently suggested it as a possible example for iconophagia (https://twitter.com/katerudy1/status/1309060848585977861)

While these acts of worship have chipped away ever so slightly at the paint of the objects of their veneration, others have come even closer to erasing images entirely. The Dumbarton Oaks Library in Washington, D.C. houses many precious Byzantine manuscripts, among them a book of Psalms and the New Testament with several nicely preserved illuminations. One, however, sticks out: an icon of Christ with severe damage. The damage appears deliberately targeted, because it is focused on surfaces where bare skin was shown. Here the paint has been almost completely removed from the parchment. Because the parchment itself and areas of it not depicting skin remains in pristine condition, it seems unlikely that the damage results from kissing or touching the image. Instead, it might be speculated that we see here the results of iconophagia, the deliberate removal of paint for ingestion. Byzantine sources record several instances in which particles from holy icons were mixed with eucharistic bread and wine or consumed as a remedy against illness. Naturally, it is almost impossible to verify traces of this practice concretely, and one can only wonder how many damaged Byzantine works of art might have received their injuries because of this most intense form of devotion.

In the end the reasons for getting rid of an image can be just as varied as those for making one in the first place. We would therefore be well advised to pay close attention not only to how they were created and what the original intentions of their makers might have been, but also to their afterlives. There can be power in an image—today just as much as in the past—but sometimes even more so in its removal.

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Illustrations

1) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Albert_Pike_Memorial_vandalism_9.jpg

2) https://bit.ly/2VSNkyr

3) https://bit.ly/3n3vm88

4) https://twitter.com/paulandstorm/status/1324766001376993280

Second, it goes without saying that I hope everyone is taking the crisis seriously, including observing all precautionary measures and quarantines urged by international public health experts and now decreed by most national and local governments around the world. Call it what we will in our respective languages, and I’ve learned a lot of new terms in recent weeks—karantina, aislamiento, l’éloignement social, social distancing, shelter-at-home, flattening the curve—I’ve come to learn how these are not just empty words or rules, but meaningful processes demonstrating how our actions—including the thoughtless ones—can dramatically impact others. Perhaps that was a lesson waiting for us even without COVID-19. But focusing on our present condition: if we are healthy and safe, this is not the time to think of ourselves, but to think about the millions of health workers at the front line of this virus who are struggling to stem the tide of illness and save lives in overcrowded hospitals and clinics around the globe. If we are healthy and safe, this is not the time to dwell on what we’re losing in terms of leisure, surplus income, and consumerism, but to think of what is really gained by flattening that curve—not just so we can return to the movies, sporting events, our favorite restaurants and shopping malls, etc., but so that those who have lost their jobs and vital income can go back to work. If we are healthy and safe, perhaps this is not the time to complain of being stuck at home, but to be grateful for being safe at home—to say nothing of those without homes, food, or running water in the current crisis.

Finally, my apologies in advance for the anticlimactic quality of this blog entry. I wish I could share a profoundly inspiring and uplifting essay, or other deeply reflective and original piece, to ease our anxieties and buoy our spirits in the middle of the current pandemic and global public health crisis. Perhaps, however, there is some value to restoring a sense of normalcy and even appreciation of the mundane in our daily routines and professions during these extraordinary and unsettling times. Something also tells me that, while it is important to stay informed and keep abreast with the latest recommendations of public health experts and our local authorities, there is such a thing as news and information overload, which can also be deleterious to our health. Especially when it’s of the anxiety-stoking variety. I am not in the business of telling others what to do—with the occasional exception on course syllabi and exams for my students, to be fair—but were I to advise myself on health and happiness in these strange times, it would probably sound like this: rather than being glued to the television or passively receiving the latest from our favorite news sites, perhaps the best thing we can do right now is spend quality (i.e. screen-less) time with our loved ones at home or in quarantine-approved fresh air spaces, if we are so fortunate, while rationing out screen time for our ongoing professional or educational responsibilities, and for nourishing self-care, including connecting with family, friends, and colleagues not in our physical presence.

On that note, and müsaadenizle (with your indulgence for this crass transition), I’m sharing a link below to an article I recently published in the International History Review. It grows out of my work at the Presidency’s Ottoman Archives in Istanbul, formerly known as the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi), as well as the Archives of the Turkish Red Crescent Society, among other collections in Turkey, North America, and the UK. As my fellow ANAMED colleagues will recall from presentations earlier this year, it is part of my broader project to write a social and cultural history of exchanges and ties between the late Ottoman Empire and North America, especially the United States (though this particular piece focuses more on Canada). Tentatively titled Ottoman Americana, this book project has been at the heart of my work at ANAMED this year.

Before sharing the article, however, I will share one last remark on the current crisis: they are not my own words, but something I heard from a thoughtful relative recently, who probably heard it widely circulated somewhere on social media. For many of you this is a truism, but for me it’s still not a bit cliché because it rings so true every one of these days and nights as we watch our cities and countries lock down in almost universal quarantine. And it goes something like this: “So much of this pandemic feels like Mother Earth sending us all to our rooms to contemplate the greed and destruction we have sown in her lands, seas, and skies as a human species, especially in modern times.” In other words, the *Anthropocene. For the sake of future generations, may we all heed the lesson.

*Props and thanks to all my fellow ANAMED colleagues, especially Ömür Harmanşah, Güldem Büyüksaraç, Tevfik Emre Şerifoğlu, Catherine Steidl, Semih Çelik, Duygu Tarkan,Nergis Günsenin, and Athena Trakadas for teaching me so much about this theme through their work (and examples) this year.

Article link:

 Not everything that we learn sticks. My Latin and Greek teacher at school used to tell us that learning ancient Greek was like learning to ride a bicycle. False. The morphology of the aorist is gone, probably forever, with all due respect to the blessed memory of my teacher! But some things stay, even when we don’t expect them to.

Everything started with a message from Catie (Catherine Steidl). Our second week at ANAMED was about to finish. The weather was lovely, the sun warm but mild, and the terrace practically begged us to spend time looking east and getting to know each other. On September 25th, Catie texted in our newly created WhatsApp group: “Hi everyone! I came to do some knitting on the terrace […]. If you are interested in knitting with people (or learning!), let me know and we can coordinate something involving fibers and tea/coffee/wine…”

I learnt knitting and crocheting as a child. I used to spend long hours at my grandparents’ place, where my severe grandmother (nonna Dina)—a marvelous knitter—tried to teach me how to use hooks and needles. Without great success, though. She was too perfectionist and old school to be a good teacher, and I was too impatient to go through the long training period that all manual practices imply. As soon as I could, I avoided this painful duty of a “good-family girl.

When Catie texted, I had already been thinking of doing some crochet and maybe even knitting for a while. I wasn’t thinking about just picking it up again, as I could not remember even the basics, but rather trying from scratch to see what happens. My inspiration came only marginally from the Berlin subway, where it is not uncommon to meet young, often hipster dudes with black mount glasses and girls with loose knots on the top of their heads doing stuff with threads and needles. Rather, I was attracted by the physical, repetitive nature of the thing. Also talking with friends who knit for fun was inspiring, as well as meeting with others who use ancient fibers and textile tools to do interesting experimental works, such as Chiara and Romina.

So, I did try. We found a weird shop down in Cihangir, half dedicated to knitting, crochet, and sewing and half to notebooks, pens and paints, and run by various male members of a family. Laughing together, they also patiently taught me some Turkish vocabulary related to crochet. After buying a thick thread and a large hook (tığ), I went to my room, sat down, and chained and made single and double crochets. I found myself just slipping into the practice, even though the years since I last sat down by my nonna were embarrassingly many. But, here I am. My hands remembered. Even the sensation of the wool thread slowly moving through my fingers to assure the right tension was inscribed somewhere, and invested me as a weird madeleine. From that day on, I either crocheted in the evening, or I met the small circle of fellows on Sunday afternoons to spend time together knitting. Catie showed me new stitches and gave me suggestions. I looked at her hands moving and tried to replicate her confident gestures!

Knitting, physically making something through repetition, gave me an unexpected connection not only just to my past and to the other fellows, but also to my work. I am an archaeologist who deals with communities that did not leave written documents behind: that is, the history of nameless, anonymous people, which to me sounds like a much better definition than prehistory. I do what archaeologists usually do: I deal with sediments and the ways they accumulated through time, which is a way of defining and de-romanticizing the practice of archaeological excavation. But what I like best is pottery! Ceramics are a wonderful material; they break, of course, but they are very durable! And they show how people engaged themselves in a repetitive, physical practice—potting—to make something to be used in other physical, receptive practices—the preparation and consumption of food and beverages.

Archaeologists study ceramic form and decorations, how pottery stayed the same or changed through time, and how far the same forms and style were shared through space by different communities. But when we study ceramics we also wonder: where do potters get the clay and other raw materials? Did they make these choices for functional reasons or were they the result of tradition and cultural choices? How were the pots built, finished, and fired? How was the production organized and this knowledge transmitted: in the households or in large complex workshops? What kind of skills and know-how was need? And we also ask ourselves how the pots were used. Foodstuffs were kept, mixed, cooked, eaten, and drunk in ceramic jars, basins, pans, casseroles, plates, and cups. The link between pots and food is deep and multifarious, and potting and food preparation might also be profoundly entangled with each other as a result of a shared ensemble of similar gestures and know-how to perform the two activities (Gokee and Logan 2014).

And here we are, through ancient pots we arrived to bodies, gestures, know-how, and skills; to people who made pots and cooked, and to embodied subjectivity. Such a view of people, knowledge, and practice is very productive in archaeology, as the materials we deal with are the results of repetitive actions (Bulger and Joyce 2013). And these actions are themselves the results of different kinds of knowledge and memory, which are largely shared in the communities we live in and are acquired and transmitted within social contexts. Our “individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context” (Varela et al. 1991: 172–73).

Different ways of holding the hook, and each of us thinking “this is the right way!”

Doing crochet on the ANAMED terrace provided me with an unexpected link to the world of embodied knowledge and subjectivity. Knitting and crocheting was a knowledge transmitted to me only partly by words (“Don’t pull the yarn so tight, Maria Bianca!”) but mostly through watching my grandmother, and doing together, and having my grandmother’s hand guiding my hands, touching and moving them. The day that Catie wrote, I thought that she would need to teach me from scratch. But as it turned out, it was just marginally the case, as all the knowledge I needed had been inscribed in my body years before.  

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Further readings and quoted works:

Bulger, Teresa Dujnic, and Rosemary Joyce. 2013. “Archaeology of Embodied Subjectivities.” In A Companion to Gender Prehistory, edited by Diane Bolger, 68–85. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Gokee, Cameron, and Amanda L. Logan. 2014. “Comparing Craft and Culinary Practice in Africa: Themes and Perspectives.” African Archaeological Review (published online 12 June 2014).

Hicks, Dan, Mary C. Beaudry, and Zoë Crossland. 2010. “Materiality and Embodiment.” In The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, edited by Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199218714.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199218714-e-16.

Varela, Francisco J., Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch. 1991.

The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.   Wenger, Etienne. 1998.

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.