Something bizarre in Istanbul

Peter, Amanda and I were walking in Sultanahmet the other day, between Hagia Sophia and the blue Mosque, when we noticed a strange phenomenon. In the park between the two buildings is a huge, red, mirrored tulip. Amanda says that last spring the International Tulip Festival was held in Istanbul, and that this must be a holdover from that event. Wherever it came from, it is huge, hideous, and incredibly popular. It seems that EVERYONE wants their picture taken between the petals of the tulip.

But it's more interesting than that -- the single largest segment of the population that wants their picture made there is young males. And they don't just stand in front of the tulip for a photo op, they pose in it -- like male models! It is completely strange and quite hilarious. Once we saw several young men do this in a row, from several different groups of friends, over the course of 15 minutes or so, Amanda decided that we had to document this bizarre phenomenon for posterity. So she decided to pose between the petals of the tulip like a tourist while some of the young men were having their friends make their pictures. The results are hilarious. Here is one of Amanda and a young Turk trying to look his best:

Here's another one that we thought was not a great picture because Candace happened to snap it just when the guy finished posing and started to walk out of the tulip:

But, if you look closer, you can see that it's even better than a posed picture. The other guy, to the left, is totally checking himself out in the reflective surface of the tulip!

What is up with that?!?!?

Southeast Turkey: Part II

We're trying to catch up with blogging about our trip, but it's been slow going because we have been busy here as well. But here's another stab at it:

On the second day of our trip, we drove a couple of hours from our base in Urfa to Zeugma. The landscape along the way was extremely dry, and the day was so dusty that during the morning drive we could see only a few feet away from our van.

Besides pistachio trees planted along the road,
everything seemed quite desolate, until we neared the Euphrates river, along whose banks there is more vegetation:

After our very dusty drive, we arrived at the site of Zeugma, which was also cloaked in dust and mist. Zeugma was an ancient city which, like many cities in Asia Minor, passed through several successive periods of history: it was a Hellenistic city founded by one of the generals of Alexander the Great, and was later given by the Roman general Pompey, comrade and later rival of Julius Caesar, to our friend from Part I, the Commagene king Antiochos I. Remember the representations of Antiochos shaking hands with several gods? Copies of those reliefs were set up in the city of Zeugma so the residents there would understand just how awesome their new ruler was.

Zeugma saw its highpoint under the Romans, though. It was a prosperous port city, as the remains of luxurious houses near the water show. There was more room to build in this area than in other ancient cities of comparable wealth, such as Pompeii or Ephesus (which was much, much larger but much more crowded), so the houses of the rich at Zeugma were quite large. They were richly furnished with beautiful mosaic floors, many of which have been removed to a museum and conserved. One of our fellow fellows, Amanda, gave a talk here to fill us all in on the history of the site and its importance. There was a small group of schoolchildren there on a fieldtrip, and one of the little boys, about 10 years old. just barged right into our group and kept talking to Amanda while she was giving her presentation. He probably wanted to know what she was talking about, or where we were from, but he didn't realize that we did not know Turkish, and that he was interrupting. It was a bit annoying, but she made it through.

For many reasons, Zeugma is an important city for archaeologists studying Roman Asia Minor, but there's more to the story than that: over the last decade, the Turkish government has put into action a plan called the GAP Project. GAP is short for Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, or "Southeastern Anatolia Project." The purpose of this project is to divert the waters of the nearby Euphrates river by means of a series of dams, to carry water to the farmlands of southeastern Turkey, thereby increasing agricultural production and, they hope, making this one of the richest areas of the country. (The Syrians, by contrast, have complained that the Turkish dams have cut in half the amount of water now reaching them via the Euphrates). Several of the dams have created vast reservoirs, and one of them is directly on top of the ancient site of Zeugma. Once it was determined that Zeugma would be covered by water, an international team of archaeologists undertook "rescue excavations." These very fast excavations, carried out under the gun, were aimed mostly at retrieving the gorgeous and important mosaics from the rich houses. Of course, much more of interest was lost, or at least is submerged for the time being:






Now it is possible to take a "tour" of the city by boat, which is horrible because the motor of the boats and all the motion of the water they make is undoubtedly disturbing the archaeological remains below the shallow water!

We had an hour or so to climb around in the site and get a feel for the landscape, and see some remains of houses that were uncovered by the excavation but are still above the waterline:




















Perhaps in the future, as the water level of the reservoir recedes as is planned, more of the site will be excavated, maybe this time more slowly and carefully, and we will learn more about this important site.

After leaving Zeugma, we continued on for another hour or so to the modern city of Gaziantep. The original name of the city was just Antep, which means "beautiful spring." In 1920 the appellation "Gazi" or "Warriors of God" was added to commemorate the fact that the men of the town were able to resist a 10-month siege by the French army. Of course, it was the French. But still...

Gaziantep, also sometimes called just Antep, is most famous for its pistachios, which are supposed to be the best in the world. In fact, the Turkish word for pistachio is "Antep fistiği", or, literally, "Antep nut." We found it difficult to argue with this assessment! Along with the wonderful pistachios came unbelievable baklava. Unlike the heavy, syrup-soaked baklava most of you are probably familiar with from Middle Eastern or Greek restaurants in the States, the baklava in Gaziantep that we had when we stopped for lunch was fresh from the oven and made from layer upon layer of light, buttery pastry, stuffed with those amazing pistachios, and lightly drizzled with a delicate syrup. Yum yum yum! (An amusing note: One of the Fellows in our group, Ivana, loves to say "yum, yum, yum!" Imagine her surprise when she found out in her Turkish class a few weeks ago that "Yumyum" means "cannabalism" in Turkish!)

After lunch, we all went to the museum that was newly-built to house the Zeugma mosaics. It is the second-largest mosaic museum in the world, after one in Tunisia. The space is great and the mosaics are gorgeous. Here are a few examples:


Although this picture is not great because the lighting in the museum has to be so low to protect the art, you can see that they have reconstructed the floorplans of the houses in the museum so visitors can see what the mosaics looked like where they were found.

This is the most famous of the mosaics, a fragmentary piece of a floor called the "Gypsy Girl" because of the scarf tied around the head, and the hoop earring. Others think it is actually Alexander the Great, but we will probably never know for sure:

Here also is an amazing bronze statue of the Mars, the Roman god of war, recovered at the site:


Also, here is a picture of a photo in the museum that shows the site of Zeugma, at night, before the mosaics were removed and the site was flooded:














Before we made it in to see the mosaics though, we were greeted with a suprise at the gate of the museum. There in front, along with his little sisters, was Amanda's "friend" from Zeugma! He was so excited to see her again! Of course pictures had to be made:


After the museum, we all split up to spend the afternoon exploring the city. Some of us went to one of the many baklava stores in the old area of the city to buy some to take home. This was a great process, because of course we all had to sample the various types before selecting our purchases. Much tastier than carpet shopping!

Gaziantep is a very pleasant and friendly place. There was much more to see than we had time to see, so we mostly spent the time strolling around enjoying the atmosphere and talking about how much we would like to go back sometime. (Oh, and eating baklava and pistachios). About a week before we left on our trip, Candace happened to run across a Travel Planet article online about 10 places in the world that are not visited very often by travelers, but should be, and Gaziantep was on it. Based on our experience, this is a great suggestion. Beautiful architecture, a wonderful museum and amazing food make this a place worth returning to!

The Byzantine Kale (Castle) of Gaziantep.

Consulate Election Breakfast

As a Fulbrighter, Candace was invited to a breakfast hosted by the Consulate to celebrate the U.S. presidential elections on Wednesday morning. It was planned for 7 am on November 5th, which was supposed to be around the time that the election results were coming in and the presidential decision finalized. However, as you are all aware, because of the way the numbers came in, the new president was clearly chosen by about 6 am here in Turkey, so the breakfast was less exciting than it might have been, but it was still a good chance to be around other Americans, and to see how the Turkish people and press were responding to the news.

We were also able to arrange to have one of our fellow fellows, Amanda, come with us, which was fun. The night before, we had stayed up quite late and had gone to a meeting of the Democrats Abroad that was being held a few blocks from the Research Center, to watch the results come in. However, by the time 1:30 am rolled around, there were still no numbers to post, so we gave up and went to bed so we could get up at 5:00 and make it to the breakfast. (Note: for those who might be wondering, there are no chapters of Republicans Abroad or Libertarians Abroad in Istanbul).

But sleep-deprived as we were, we did make it to the Consulate shindig the next morning. The spread of food was disappointing (we were hoping for bacon), but it was sponsored by American companies, including McDonalds (who brought egg McMuffins), Starbucks, Dole, and Dunkin Donuts (yay!). Interestingly, the donuts that McDonald's brought were each individually packaged in their own plastic clamshell, which seemed ridiculiously wasteful. We were later told that because of high security, each donut had to be placed on the conveyor belt of a metal detector and passed through, so the individual casing was intended to keep them from getting dirty when they passed under the plastic flaps at the beginning and end of the tunnel! Here's a picture of the Dole booth. Notice the Nemrud Dağ beach!



Proving once again that the world is much smaller than we can possibly imagine, the breakfast was organized by the sister-in-law of one of our friends at the Getty, who works in the same department Peter did. She and her husband (our friend's brother) work for the State Department and were transferred here just a week or so before we moved to Turkey. We met him (Marco) for lunch on Monday, then met her (Karen) at the breakfast. The Fulbright office director, Surreya Bey (Mr. Surreya) brought her over to our table to introduce her to Peter and I as a member of the Consulate staff we might want to know, and was quite surprised when we started talking to each other about other family members we knew, etc.

A Turkish news station interviews Surreya Bey, the Fulbright Director in Istanbul (Right)

The breakfast was interesting, but proved to be more of an opportunity for the Turkish media to have a story about the U.S. election than it was for U.S. citizens to celebrate the election.

Camera Crews at the Breakfast

The Consul General spoke briefly (she's the one at the podium in the picture below), and there was a translator to translate her speech into Turkish line by line, but when it came time for the panel that had been planned to speak about the election and its implications for Turkey, we were surprised to find that they were all Turkish speakers and there was NO translation. So for


half an hour probably 80% of the people in the room sat and patiently listened to the opinions of people that we could not understand at all. Then internet phone calls were made to Turkish citizens in the U.S. and broadcast to the room. The Consul General would ask "What is it like there in Philadelphia?" and the answer would then be in Turkish. So we didn't really learn much about either what was going on in the U.S. or how the Turks felt about the election.

But we did have a good time, and met some interesting people, including a member of the AKP political Party here in Turkey (the pro-Islamist party now in power), who was seated at our table. He told us straight out that he was not interested in being there, and had only come because it was part of his job, but he did tell us at least a few things that the panel speakers were saying. Candace also was got to shake hands with a member of Turkish Parliament, because she happened to be standing close to the person he was coming to talk to.

We also got great "swag bags" with pins, pads of paper, keychains, and mugs that all prove we were at the Turkish Consulate Election Breakfast 2008. Pretty cool.

In other election-related news, Amanda and Candace scoured the streets of our neighborhood today buying as many newpapers as we could as keepsakes of the historic election. Calinda, Candace's older sister, works for the Dallas Morning News, and had mentioned that they had to print extra editions of the paper the day after the election, and suggested that it might be a good idea for everyone to pick one up to keep. Inspired by this, we found several different Turkish-language newspapers both right- and left- leaning (Cumhuriyet ("Republic") and Radikal), as well as papers in English, German, French, and Spanish. Who knows, maybe someday they will be worth something?

Note to our loyal readers

There are two new posts below. For some reason, blogger posted them in reverse order from how we posted them. We just wanted to direct your attention to the short entry on Turkish Republic Day, because it has a video of the fireworks, which were awesome! It is below the first of our entries on our trip to southeast Turkey. Be sure to read everything!

Southeast Turkey: Part I

THE MIGHTY ANTIOCHUS I, KING OF THE KOMMAGENE EMPIRE

We made it back from our epic trip to southeast Turkey with a group from the RCAC. We were gone from about 5 am Saturday morning until about 1am Wednesday morning, and it was go, go, go the entire time! Everyone was exhausted by the time we landed in Istanbul Tuesday night, but it was worth it. There is so much to tell, and so many pictures to show, that we have decided to "publish" our adventure in installments. Follows here the first part: Malatya and Nemrud Dağı. (By the way, we figured out how to convert our keyboards to Turkish keyboards so we can type things correctly now!).

After a very early-morning departure from the Research Center, 18 of us boarded a plane to Malatya. The airport was tiny, but soon our bus arrived to pick us up. Our driver would make the entire trek with us, more than 1000 km over the next four days, and was very good and extremely patient. He was tipped handsomely.

Our first stop was "Eski Malatya" (old Malatya). The city used to be very important in the Christian period, when it was home to about 50 churches and at least six monasteries. There is a mosque there, Ulu Cami, that was supposed to have been built by the Selcuks in the 13th century. However, we were very disappointed to discover that it has been basically completely rebuilt in the past few years. It is still pretty, but there is nothing particularly historical about it. And, unfortunately, it was not open and there was no imam around to let us in. We spent about an hour walking around what basically amounted to a mid-sized village with not much to see at all. But here is the mosque anyway:

We then reboarded the bus for the 4+ hour trip to Nemrud Dağı. For those of you who do not know (which is probably most of you except those who have been to Turkey or seen a random History Channel special or something), Nemrud Dağı (that is, Mt. Nemrud) is a massive monument to Antiochus I, the king of the Kommagene empire, who ruled around 69 BC. "The what empire?" you might well ask. The Kommagenes were a short-lived empire in the area of southeastern Turkey who gained their independence from the Seleucids in 163/162 BC. Within a short 300 years they got too uppity and were eventually smacked down by the Romans and made a part of the province of Syria. A couple of generations before that happened, Antiochus I thought he was pretty important and had a massive burial mound constructed for himself on the top of a mountain peak, decorated with colossal statues.

To give you some idea of the scope of the project, look at the mound on top of this mountain:


It looks like a pile of sand, but is really constructed entirely of loose rock -- it's the highest burial mound in the world, in terms of its elevation. The work it must have taken to haul all of that stone to the tip-top of this mountain, the second highest in Turkey after Ararat, truly boggles the mind. It is not the largest such structure in Turkey, an honor that goes to a Lydian burial mound outside of Sardis that is so large Candace's mom was able to photograph it from an airplane last summer (we don't have that picture), but still, the fact that it is so high, in such a remote area, makes it a staggering project.

The mountain is located in a dry landscape, almost empty of vegetation, and there is nothing around except the road running to the small giftshop/rest area complex at the foot of the peak. There is a hostel a couple of miles before you reach that complex, and a few families herd their animals on the mountain or, presumably, work at the hostel or giftshop, but the area seems very, very empty. As Peter commented, he knew from descriptions that it would be remote, but he didn't expect it to be desolate. Here are some photographs, taken on the approach to the mountain and from the tomb at the top, that may help convey how bleak and awesome the terrain is:

The climb up is steep but stone stairs have been constructed, so it is a relatively easy, but tiring climb (or for about $7 you can have a local lead you up on a donkey, although that seemed like a terrifying idea since the path is so narrow and the drop so steep!).

The statues at the top represent the King Antiochus I and several gods. Since he considered himself a god as well, he had himself shown here, in matching statues on both sides of the mountain, seated in a group with other deities. There are also reliefs which were at one time installed down each side of the monument, showing Nemrud shaking hands with each one of the gods. The gods are a mix of traditional Roman and Eastern gods. So, for instance, there is Apollo-Mithras (Apollo is the Roman god of the sun, but here he is also Mithras, an Eastern god the Roman army started to worship after they learned about him during their tours), Zeus, and Hercules, as well as a representation of Tyche, the empire (and Fortune) personified as a woman. You can also see eagles and lions of course. As you can see from the pictures, the heads long ago fell off the statues, and archaeologists have lined them up in front of their bodies, which is slightly bizarre:



Top: The statues with their heads in front; Bottom: Peter's more artistic picture of it.


Peter with Apollo/Mithras on the East Terrace


Candace with Zeus on the West Terrace

Zeus and Antiochus, East Terrace

And just for Candace's mom, we will mention that there is a very strange conspiracy theory, based on the fact that one of the statues looks like Elvis, that Elvis was actually King Antiochus reincarnated. Problem: the one that looks (arguably) like Elvis is not the portrait of King Antiochus, but of Apollo/Mithras, as indicated by the type of Eastern cap he is wearing. Anyway, you can decide for yourself:

We were lucky enough to arrive just before sunset. Sunrise and sunset are touted as the best times to visit the monument because one set of the colossal statues is located on the east side, and one on the west, so the rays of the rising or setting sun strike the rocks and the statues and make them seem to almost glow. I can imagine that in the middle of the summer these are also very busy times to visit. Not a lot of tourists make it out to the site because it is so remote, but there is a fairly steady stream. We had hoped to be alone on the peak, but there were a good number of people there, even though as the sun went down it got quite cold. We were very surprised to see some fairly old women up there.

The descent was more difficult than the ascent. The way down from the west side is much more harrowing than the climb up -- for some reason there is no real path from the west platform so everyone was just making their way down the steep slope of loose rock until we joined the stone pathway about a quarter of the way down. So basically, the steepest bit of the descent was just loose rocks and gravel and a fairly steep grade. The two older Turkish ladies were in front of us (in long skirts and loafer-type shoes, completely inappropriate for that type of climbing). I'm putting a picture in because it is somewhat amusing that she is standing right in front of the sign that says don't do what she's doing!



Just after starting down, she actually did fall. Luckily the mountainside was so steep that she didn't really have very far to fall backwards before sitting down. We helped her up of course, and then Amanda, who was the closest to her in the line, gave her her arm and escorted her the rest of the way down. Meanwhile, the man who was with the two older women just walked on by as if nothing had happened! Peter offered his arm to the other woman, but she was insistent on going it alone, and made it down ok, thankfully.

Overall, Nemrud is definitely worth seeing, although it takes some effort. But somehow it wasn't as...big as we expected. It is, however, the most-photographed site in southeast Turkey, but even that has not been enough to attract the level of crowds that can spoil other sites. Go if you have the chance!

Group shot of the RCAC Fellows on top of Mt. Nemrud:

Sunset from Nemrud Dağı:

Another sunset pic: From left, Candace, Ivana, Amanda F.

COMING SOON, PART II: ZEUGMA AND GAZIANTEP

Turkish Republic Day

Two days ago was the 29th of October, which is Republic Day (Cumhuriyet Bayrami) here in Turkey. It is the day that the Turkish constitution was amended (in 1923) an act that abolished the Ottoman Empire and brought the Turkish Republic into existence. So, basically, it's the Turkish 4th of July.

As on the 4th in America, there was a fireworks display here in Istanbul. They were shot from the Bosphorus bridge, between Europe and Asia. Several of us living at the Center met up on the roof terrace to watch the show, but discovered when it started that a building next to ours was just tall enough to block our view. So, we climbed a spiral staircase that goes up off the roof (to nowhere, actually) and watched from there. It was a bit of a precarious perch, which is why my pictures and video of the fireworks are shaky -- I had to hold the camera with one hand while holding on to the pole in the middle of the staircase for balance.

The show was incredible. The fireworks were continuous and huge. One of the Turkish Fellows said he had read that the show was put on by the same company that did the fireworks for the opening of the Sydney Olympics, and that they cost 5 million Lira! There was a lot of red (the color of the Turkish flag of course), and so much smoke was generated by the constant explosions that at some points we couldn't even see the fireworks anymore. It was almost like the finale of most U.S. Fourth of July fireworks shows, but it went on for 15 solid minutes. I have attached a video here, under the pictures, which is something I have never tried before. It looks like a regular picture except it has a bar at the bottom with a play button. This was not the most impressive part of the show, but it was the only one of the three videos I took that was not too large to attach. To play it, you should just have to click the forward arrow at the bottom left of the square. Please let me know if you can or can't see it!:






-Candace