Haziran 2012
06/30/2012
A Bilkent graduation
Sunday morning, two weeks ago, I attended the graduation ceremony at Bilkent University. I can’t count how many such ceremonies I’ve been to. For over ten years they have been held in the Odeon, a large, covered outdoor theater in half-circle form, an ancient Greek and Roman type but here in a modern design of Turkish architect Erkut Şahinbaş. The graduation is now done in three ceremonies, morning, early afternoon, and late afternoon, to accommodate graduates and as many relatives and friends as would like to come.
In the Odeon, Rector Abdullah Atalar addresses the crowd
In my early years at Bilkent, before the Odeon was built, only one ceremony was held, and that was in the original Sports Hall, a small building, and once or twice under a tent set up in the parking lot of my faculty (where this February I slipped on ice and broke my kneecap). The ventilation was poor, the feeling claustrophobic. When the Odeon was completed, everyone cheered.
Every year until his death two years ago, after the graduates had filed in, the professors taken their seats, and the families well settled, İhsan Doğramacı, the founder of Bilkent University, would enter to great applause, even standing ovation. While professors had donned academic robes, Prof. Doğramacı always wore a suit. He would take his seat front row, center. With his arrival, the ceremony could begin – as always, with the “İstiklal Marşı,” the “Independence March,” the Turkish national anthem.
The “İstiklal Marşı” is one of the few national anthems in a minor key. Another oddity is the mismatch of the words and the music, with musical phrases often ending in the middle of a word. This situation no doubt resulted because the lyrics, the first two stanzas of a heroic poem by Mehmet Akif Ersoy, selected in 1921 during the nationalist campaign to rid Turkey of foreign occupation, were not matched until 1930 with the stirring music composed by Osman Zeki Üngör, after the tune chosen earlier proved excessively dull. Memorizing this song is a challenge for schoolchildren, a Turkish friend tells me: firstly, understanding the old fashioned, highly poetic language, and secondly, trying to fit that to musical phrases that have their own logic. That’s no different, really, from our American anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” With its poetic words from 1814 and the difficult-to-sing music taken from a song of 1780, it’s not at all easy to learn. How do newly minted US citizens manage?
Archaeology students await their diplomas
After the national anthem, the graduation ceremony proceeds directly to a speech by the Rector of the university, Abdullah Atalar. Turkey, or at least Bilkent University, does not have a tradition of a distinguished outsider giving a commencement address. In America, the “commencement address” is a deeply ingrained tradition, and even students listen respectfully, even if thoughts may wander. The one time an outsider, the recipient of an honorary doctorate, spoke at a Bilkent ceremony, the low buzz of student chatter was heard throughout. The university administration must have decided this was an experiment not to be repeated.
After the Rector’s talk, awards for distinguished teaching are presented. Then come the academic prizes: the top student in each faculty, the top student in each department. If a distinguished guest is present, a high-ranking political figure, that person is invited to present the awards. In the past, I have seen Turkish presidents (Turgut Özal, Süleyman Demirel, and the current president, Abdullah Gül, two of whose children graduated from Bilkent) and various cabinet ministers called to the stage. But this morning we are not to be so favored.
After the PhD and MA diplomas are awarded, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra plays a Hungarian Dance by Brahms, to calm everyone down before we move on to the main course: the undergraduate diplomas. Graduates enter the stage from the two sides, left and right, as the two announcers proclaim the names in alternation. The movement is swift, and the energy high as family and friends wait for the key name and burst into applause, unfurl a banner, or let loose a cannon spray of confetti.
I have been delegated to lead our small contingent of Archaeology students onto the stage. We follow the American Culture and Literature Department. Directly in front of me are the alphabetically last of that group, a very tall young man, at least 1.90m (6’3”) tall, and, last of all, a short young woman, at most 1.55cm (5’2”), with long blond hair in perfect order, cap securely bobby-pinned in place, and sky-blue high-heeled platform shoes that resemble small boats, a model that is high fashion this spring.
Women’s shoes are always stars at these ceremonies. Last year, I sat in the faculty section, with my eyes level with the stage floor – a perfect vantage point to observe the spectacle of shoes. This year, sitting high up with the students, I can’t see shoes, and in any case, because of my knee injury, I have to concentrate on descending and ascending. In order to manage the high steps down to the stage, I have brought a cane with a thick rubber tip. I carefully plant the cane, step down with my weak leg, the good leg following, all the while making sure I don’t trip on my academic gown and pitch headlong onto the American Culture student with the platform heels.
Caps in the air! Hooray!
When all diplomas are awarded, the students are invited to hurl their caps into the air. Students erupt in cheers and hugs, parents and friends flood down, and I, amidst the hail of mortarboards, quietly escape from the Odeon. Outside, waiters circulate with trays of food and drink. Grabbing a cup of peach juice and a savory biscuit, I head across the esplanade for the small pool with fountain where, it has been agreed, our graduates, their families, and we teachers will congregate to greet each other, offer congratulations, and pose for photos. It’s 12:00 pm noon, the sun is intense, and under my academic robe I can feel my shirt is completely soaked. After appropriate felicitations, it’s time to go home, hang up the academic gown for another year, eat lunch, water the plants, and think of the week ahead.
06/20/2012
Chickpeas, Hittites, and Archaeologists
At the end of May, Marie-Henriette and I were in Çorum to attend the 34th annual “Archaeology in Turkey” symposium, organized by the Ministry of Tourism and Culture. Çorum (pronounced "chore-um") is a city of 230,000 located a 4-hour drive northeast of Ankara. It has nothing particular to attract tourists, apart from a late 19th c. clocktower and an excellent archaeological museum housed in a striking late Ottoman building. Otherwise, all I knew about Çorum was its country-wide reputation for its "leblebi” – dry roasted chickpeas, a snack food eaten like nuts (an acquired taste, but low fat, low salt!).
“Whatever you do, don’t buy any leblebi,” Marie-Henriette said. “They’ll just sit on the shelf.”
But Çorum province does happen to contain the heartland of the Hittite Empire, ca. 1600-1200 BC, and the city now appeals to this distant heritage. The local university, recently founded, is called Hittite University, and the elegant 5-star, high-rise hotel where the conference was held is the “Anitta,” named for an early Hittite ruler.
Symposiasts in front of the Anitta Hotel
As I walked from the clocktower to the Anitta Hotel, I stopped at one of the many leblebi shops and bought a small sack of my favorite type, “biberli leblebi,” chickpeas with red pepper.
I had come to Çorum directly from a weekend tour of Kerkenes Dağı, near Yozgat, and Hattusa, the Hittite capital at the modern village of Boğazkale. Kerkenes, a vast mountain-top town of the late 7th-6th c. BC, was settled by Phrygians – definitely post-Hittite. Geoffrey and Françoise Summers have been conducting state-of-the-art archaeological explorations there for some 20 years. Sadly, they have just had their permit revoked, for reasons, we can guess, that had nothing to do with the quality of their research. At Hattusa, the German Archaeological Institute continues its long-standing work, now under the direction of Andreas Schachner. German archaeologists had a scare last year, when the Ministry threatened to withold their permits unless the statue of a sphinx, found at Hattusa in 1907 and taken to Berlin for restoration soon after, was returned to Turkey. The Germans relented. The benignly smiling sphinx now greets visitors to the recently renovated museum at Boğazkale, together with a companion that had long been displayed in Istanbul. A third sphinx, of the original four found at the Sphinx Gate, still imposing although fragmented and battered, can be seen under a shelter in the museum garden, whereas the fourth, quite weathered, is still in situ.
From Hattusa to Berlin and back: a well-travelled Hittite sphinx
Bringing the sphinx back to Turkey was a victory for Ertuğrul Günay, the minister of Tourism and Culture, a key step in a larger campaign to repatriate ancient and medieval objects taken from Turkey to foreign countries. Antiquities have been taken out of Turkey for a long time, sometimes with permission, often without. The 19th century was a fruitful time for European lovers of classical antiquity, when sizable sculptural monuments were removed before the Ottomans developed an interest in keeping them. In the later 19th c., Ottoman law (notably in 1884) prohibited the export of antiquities, but this was not always strictly observed. Important today are international conventions against the illegal exporting and importing of antiquities, with UNESCO taking the lead in 1970. Despite such agreements, objects continue to be illegally removed, sold, and bought. The struggle to stop such activities is never ending.
It’s nice to have the Hittite sphinx back in its home, and it certainly makes for heartwarming headlines. But is it really necessary? Anatolian Bronze Age art is familiar here. European art is not. Why not push for agreements that would bring German art to Turkey, visiting exhibits – paintings, sculpture, and the like? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see works of Dürer here in Ankara?
A leblebi shop (not patronized by me), with sacks of leblebi hanging from the rafters
The “Archaeology in Turkey” symposium began, for the first time ever, without the national anthem, the one-minute pause in honor of Atatürk, or the minute of silence for those archaeologists who died during the past year (they would be mentioned later, though). During the opening speeches by various dignitaries, rumours abounded: the minister was expected! As Murat Süslü, the head of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, was speaking, a side door opened and in strode a beaming Ertuğrul Günay, accompanied by a posse of men in dark suits. The photographers went wild. Ertuğrul Bey would be the last speaker of the morning. In a commanding voice (a friend noted that the higher the rank of the speaker, the louder the voice), he asserted that foreign teams were treated no differently than Turkish teams, and that Turkish should become an international scientific language. How could one not agree? I’m all for fairness, and why shouldn’t the Turkish language be promoted? But I’m also for the internationalizing of art history and archaeology in this country. If Dürer comes to Ankara, as he should, why not have Turkish archaeologists directing excavations in Germany?
“These leblebi are stale!”
“From the center of Çorum?” I said. “It’s not possible!”
But she was right. Even the red pepper had lost its zing. The next day I threw them away. Two weeks later, I quietly threw out the barely touched sack I had bought two years ago on a department trip to Hattusa.
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“Whatever you do, don’t buy any leblebi,” Marie-Henriette said. “They’ll just sit on the shelf.”
But Çorum province does happen to contain the heartland of the Hittite Empire, ca. 1600-1200 BC, and the city now appeals to this distant heritage. The local university, recently founded, is called Hittite University, and the elegant 5-star, high-rise hotel where the conference was held is the “Anitta,” named for an early Hittite ruler.
Symposiasts in front of the Anitta Hotel
As I walked from the clocktower to the Anitta Hotel, I stopped at one of the many leblebi shops and bought a small sack of my favorite type, “biberli leblebi,” chickpeas with red pepper.
I had come to Çorum directly from a weekend tour of Kerkenes Dağı, near Yozgat, and Hattusa, the Hittite capital at the modern village of Boğazkale. Kerkenes, a vast mountain-top town of the late 7th-6th c. BC, was settled by Phrygians – definitely post-Hittite. Geoffrey and Françoise Summers have been conducting state-of-the-art archaeological explorations there for some 20 years. Sadly, they have just had their permit revoked, for reasons, we can guess, that had nothing to do with the quality of their research. At Hattusa, the German Archaeological Institute continues its long-standing work, now under the direction of Andreas Schachner. German archaeologists had a scare last year, when the Ministry threatened to withold their permits unless the statue of a sphinx, found at Hattusa in 1907 and taken to Berlin for restoration soon after, was returned to Turkey. The Germans relented. The benignly smiling sphinx now greets visitors to the recently renovated museum at Boğazkale, together with a companion that had long been displayed in Istanbul. A third sphinx, of the original four found at the Sphinx Gate, still imposing although fragmented and battered, can be seen under a shelter in the museum garden, whereas the fourth, quite weathered, is still in situ.
From Hattusa to Berlin and back: a well-travelled Hittite sphinx
Bringing the sphinx back to Turkey was a victory for Ertuğrul Günay, the minister of Tourism and Culture, a key step in a larger campaign to repatriate ancient and medieval objects taken from Turkey to foreign countries. Antiquities have been taken out of Turkey for a long time, sometimes with permission, often without. The 19th century was a fruitful time for European lovers of classical antiquity, when sizable sculptural monuments were removed before the Ottomans developed an interest in keeping them. In the later 19th c., Ottoman law (notably in 1884) prohibited the export of antiquities, but this was not always strictly observed. Important today are international conventions against the illegal exporting and importing of antiquities, with UNESCO taking the lead in 1970. Despite such agreements, objects continue to be illegally removed, sold, and bought. The struggle to stop such activities is never ending.
It’s nice to have the Hittite sphinx back in its home, and it certainly makes for heartwarming headlines. But is it really necessary? Anatolian Bronze Age art is familiar here. European art is not. Why not push for agreements that would bring German art to Turkey, visiting exhibits – paintings, sculpture, and the like? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see works of Dürer here in Ankara?
A leblebi shop (not patronized by me), with sacks of leblebi hanging from the rafters
* * * * * * * * *
Back in Ankara, I opened my treasure and offered Marie-Henriette the first taste.“These leblebi are stale!”
“From the center of Çorum?” I said. “It’s not possible!”
But she was right. Even the red pepper had lost its zing. The next day I threw them away. Two weeks later, I quietly threw out the barely touched sack I had bought two years ago on a department trip to Hattusa.
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- 1970: UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
06/04/2012
A modern and very fake lion head recently attached to a 13th c. BC lion body, at the Lion Gate, Hattusa (the Hittite capital). Roar!
After a trip to Hittite lands and a quick return to Ankara, I'm off on another voyage. I'll aim to post in a few weeks.
Mayıs 2012
05/25/2012
05/20/2012
Ankara, queen of cities?
Everyone listening to Elvan Altan Ergut the other night felt a touch sad at the end of her lecture. Prof. Ergut, an architectural historian at METU (Middle East Technical University), specializes in late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican architecture. After eloquently presenting the “bank streets” in Istanbul (late 19th c.) and Ankara (1920s-1930s), with a focus on the grand bank buildings in Ankara in, first, the “national style” (Ottoman flavor, 1920s) and then the “international style” (austere Bauhaus flavor, 1930s), Elvan Hanım had to reveal a sad truth. In the past decade, many of the great Turkish banks have relocated their headquarters to Istanbul, abandoning Ankara. We listeners, Ankara people all, including Elvan Hanım herself, felt deflated. What is left for our city?
Ankara: Entering the Ziraat Bankası (Agricultural Bank), decorated for the May 19 holiday.
(Photo: Irene Gates)
After the lecture, Marie-Henriette and I joined friends for dinner at Balıkçıköy Fahri, off Tunali Hilmi Street. The restaurant features fish, as the name indicates (“Fahri’s fishermen’s village”), and the food is excellent and creatively prepared, the decor colorful, the atmosphere joyous. One could hardly do better in Istanbul. So of course the subject of Istanbul came up. One friend now has an apartment there, a weekend getaway. Another said, “I love visiting Istanbul. When I’m there, I ask myself, why am I not living here? Then I’m stuck in traffic for 2 ½ hours and I have my answer!”
I have to admit it: I love Istanbul, too. I first visited when I was 19, taking a week off from summer school at the American University of Beirut. I had never met a Turkish person in my life and I couldn’t speak a word of the language, not even “evet” (“yes”) or “hayır” (“no”). I stayed in a ghastly hotel near the ferry docks in Eminönü, a something Palas (“palace”), a vintage name in the days when hotels, starred or starless, were routinely called “Palas.” From my window, which I had to prop open with a book, I could see a chink of sky and lots of pigeons. I visited the Topkapı Palace, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, took a Bosporus ferry, and smoked pungent, filterless Yeni Harman cigarettes that came in a salmon-colored box. I was enchanted.
Poor Ankara. Istanbul people never come here, if they can avoid it. But then, like New Yorkers, they rarely leave their city at all, except to go abroad or perhaps to an Aegean beach in summertime. Ankara has a reputation as being dull, a modern creation, a Turkish Washington DC or Brasilia. But it has 4 million people, many universities, and a nice dry climate (even when it rains or snows) which I like a lot.
And it has a past – a long past. Iron Age Phrygians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, and Ottomans: they were all here and have left their traces. Most astonishing is the huge inscription carved on the outer walls of the Temple of Augustus and Roma (1st c. AD), the “Res Gestae Divi Augusti,” the “Deeds of the divine Emperor Augustus.” This first-person account of Augustus’s achievements was displayed on bronze pillars in front of his mausoleum in Rome. Copies of the text were circulated throughout the empire. Today, the bronze pillars have vanished, as have most copies. Only here, in Ankara, is the text preserved virtually complete, in both Latin, the official language, and Greek, the language of the eastern empire, the local language. So stunning is this survival that it has been called “the queen of Latin inscriptions.”
The hilltop above the Temple is still girded by Byzantine fortifications of the 7th and 9th centuries. The magnificent Museum of Anatolian Civilizations is up there, too, as are the Aslanhane Mosque of the Seljuk period (13th c.), the Rahmi Koç Museum (in the Çengelhan, a restored commercial building from the 16th c.), and the Divan Çukurhan Hotel (a 17th c. building, newly restored).
Ankara citadel: 9th c. walls + modern houses
(Photo: from the internet)
I bring my Byzantine and Islamic art and archaeology students here every year. Many have never set foot in this district, still largely ungentrified and inhabited by lower income groups. It’s somewhat sleepy – the big commercial area lies lower down the hill. It’s village-like, despite the historic buildings. The views from the highest points of the citadel walls are stupendous. On a clear day one enjoys a vast panorama: the Roman and medieval city close at hand; the larger area developed in the Atatürk period; Kızılay further south on the valley floor; Çankaya on the southern slope beyond, home of embassies and the presidential palace; the northern and eastern hills, and far away to the west. One feels exalted. Ankara reigns like a queen.
Recommended reading: Patricia Daunt, “Fly in the Face of Fashion,” Cornucopia no. 47 (2012), pp. 72-97. See also Patricia Daunt on the embassy buildings in Ankara and Norman Stone on Ankara at the start of the Republic, in Cornucopia no. 39 (2008), pp. 40-89. To learn more about Cornucopia, a beautiful, fascinating magazine on Turkey, consult: http://www.cornucopia.net
Ankara: Entering the Ziraat Bankası (Agricultural Bank), decorated for the May 19 holiday.
(Photo: Irene Gates)
After the lecture, Marie-Henriette and I joined friends for dinner at Balıkçıköy Fahri, off Tunali Hilmi Street. The restaurant features fish, as the name indicates (“Fahri’s fishermen’s village”), and the food is excellent and creatively prepared, the decor colorful, the atmosphere joyous. One could hardly do better in Istanbul. So of course the subject of Istanbul came up. One friend now has an apartment there, a weekend getaway. Another said, “I love visiting Istanbul. When I’m there, I ask myself, why am I not living here? Then I’m stuck in traffic for 2 ½ hours and I have my answer!”
I have to admit it: I love Istanbul, too. I first visited when I was 19, taking a week off from summer school at the American University of Beirut. I had never met a Turkish person in my life and I couldn’t speak a word of the language, not even “evet” (“yes”) or “hayır” (“no”). I stayed in a ghastly hotel near the ferry docks in Eminönü, a something Palas (“palace”), a vintage name in the days when hotels, starred or starless, were routinely called “Palas.” From my window, which I had to prop open with a book, I could see a chink of sky and lots of pigeons. I visited the Topkapı Palace, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, took a Bosporus ferry, and smoked pungent, filterless Yeni Harman cigarettes that came in a salmon-colored box. I was enchanted.
Poor Ankara. Istanbul people never come here, if they can avoid it. But then, like New Yorkers, they rarely leave their city at all, except to go abroad or perhaps to an Aegean beach in summertime. Ankara has a reputation as being dull, a modern creation, a Turkish Washington DC or Brasilia. But it has 4 million people, many universities, and a nice dry climate (even when it rains or snows) which I like a lot.
And it has a past – a long past. Iron Age Phrygians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, and Ottomans: they were all here and have left their traces. Most astonishing is the huge inscription carved on the outer walls of the Temple of Augustus and Roma (1st c. AD), the “Res Gestae Divi Augusti,” the “Deeds of the divine Emperor Augustus.” This first-person account of Augustus’s achievements was displayed on bronze pillars in front of his mausoleum in Rome. Copies of the text were circulated throughout the empire. Today, the bronze pillars have vanished, as have most copies. Only here, in Ankara, is the text preserved virtually complete, in both Latin, the official language, and Greek, the language of the eastern empire, the local language. So stunning is this survival that it has been called “the queen of Latin inscriptions.”
The hilltop above the Temple is still girded by Byzantine fortifications of the 7th and 9th centuries. The magnificent Museum of Anatolian Civilizations is up there, too, as are the Aslanhane Mosque of the Seljuk period (13th c.), the Rahmi Koç Museum (in the Çengelhan, a restored commercial building from the 16th c.), and the Divan Çukurhan Hotel (a 17th c. building, newly restored).
Ankara citadel: 9th c. walls + modern houses
(Photo: from the internet)
I bring my Byzantine and Islamic art and archaeology students here every year. Many have never set foot in this district, still largely ungentrified and inhabited by lower income groups. It’s somewhat sleepy – the big commercial area lies lower down the hill. It’s village-like, despite the historic buildings. The views from the highest points of the citadel walls are stupendous. On a clear day one enjoys a vast panorama: the Roman and medieval city close at hand; the larger area developed in the Atatürk period; Kızılay further south on the valley floor; Çankaya on the southern slope beyond, home of embassies and the presidential palace; the northern and eastern hills, and far away to the west. One feels exalted. Ankara reigns like a queen.
Recommended reading: Patricia Daunt, “Fly in the Face of Fashion,” Cornucopia no. 47 (2012), pp. 72-97. See also Patricia Daunt on the embassy buildings in Ankara and Norman Stone on Ankara at the start of the Republic, in Cornucopia no. 39 (2008), pp. 40-89. To learn more about Cornucopia, a beautiful, fascinating magazine on Turkey, consult: http://www.cornucopia.net
05/13/2012
Sardis ever green
Sardis, an ancient city in Western Asia Minor, located 70km / 45 miles inland from Izmir, prospered for some 1500 years, from the Iron Age into the Middle Ages. The city first flourished as the capital of the rich Lydian kingdom (9th-6th c. BC). In subsequent centuries, Persians, Hellenistic rulers, and Romans would continue to value Sardis as a regional center. Its remains have been excavated by American teams, first from Princeton in the early 20th century (1910-1914, 1922), and again since 1958, under the sponsorship of Harvard and Cornell, with George Hanfmann as the first director.
In the hot summer at Sardis, a Roman is thirsty
Although I never took part in the Sardis excavations, somehow I have had an affinity with the project. When I was an undergraduate, I heard George Hanfmann speak on Sardis, my first archaeological lecture after I decided to major in archaeology. I have visited the site regularly if infrequently and enjoyed my contacts with archaeologists who have worked there. The atmosphere has always been friendly and welcoming.
In History of Western Civilization I (ancient and medieval), I teach the opening section of Herodotus’s History, the colorful, dramatic account of the Lydian kingdom. I'm not sure how much my mostly Turkish students know of Sardis, the Lydians, and the last king, Croesus, but I insist that this is a piece of the history of their country and is to be savored.
All this came to mind after I learned with great sadness of the recent death of Crawford Greenewalt, Jr., long-time director of the Sardis excavations and retired professor of classical archaeology at the University of California, Berkeley. For many, Greenie (as everyone called him) = Sardis. He had taken part in the excavations every summer since 1959, after finishing his undergraduate studies. In 1976, he replaced Prof. Hanfmann as the project director, a position he held until 2007, when he handed this duty over to Nicholas Cahill, a former student and long-time Sardis colleague. Ever fit and trim, he continued to spend his summers at Sardis. No one would have guessed that summer 2011 would be his last.
I can’t remember when I first met Greenie, but certainly by August 1977, when I visited Sardis and spent the night. The dinner was a surprise: Mexican food, thanks to donations by official Americans, friends of the expedition, who had BX privileges in Izmir and could buy the appropriate ingredients. After dinner, the younger set went out to the Temple of Artemis, and, playing taped music, we danced under the moonlight. Dancing under the moonlight wasn’t Greenie’s thing, but no one begrudged him that. His kindness, his generosity of time and attention to everyone no matter what their rank, and his knowledge of Sardis and the Lydians were remarkable. And he was witty, with a pun or a delightful turn of phrase regularly lighting up his conversation and his scholarly presentations.
During his time as director, new and surprising information about the ancient city kept emerging. In 2004, I came with a group of graduate students from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (touring that summer in Turkey, not Greece, to avoid complications resulting from the Summer Olympics held in Athens). Greenie gave us a detailed tour, including descending an enormous ladder deep down into the ground to view remains of the massive mud-brick (adobe) fortification wall that the Lydians had built in the 6th c. BC. In 1977, the existence of such a wall wasn’t even imagined.
In the early 1980s, I sent the manuscript of a short book on Rhodian burial practices in the Archaic period, ca. 625-525 BC, to the newly established publications section of the UCLA Institute of Archaeology. It's normal practice for a press to send such a manuscript to specialists for evaluation before deciding whether or not to accept it for publication. I chose UCLA on purpose, hoping my manuscript would be sent to Greenie, at that time one of the few American specialists in Archaic period Greek civilization in the eastern Aegean region. I was keen to get his comments, but of course I couldn’t request the reviewers myself. When the comments from the anonymous reviewers came back, one set in particular was detailed, perceptive, and helpful – a conscientiously thorough examination of my work, for which I was most grateful. From certain remarks, I could tell they came from Greenie.
The imperial hall, in the Roman bath - gymnasium complex
My last visit to Sardis was two summers ago, June, 2010, with a group of Ankara Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT). Nick Cahill gave us a magnificent tour, in the great tradition of Greenie. Greenie himself happened to be away that day, unfortunately. And now he is gone. But 50+ summers at Sardis, the training and encouragement of countless students and colleagues, numerous scholarly publications, benefactions to ARIT and other institutions, and a kind, modest, generous spirit: it’s a wonderful legacy that we will treasure for the rest of our lives.
05/06/2012
Vodka, pomegranate juice, and tea
Last Thursday, after listening to ancient historian Kenneth Harl (Tulane University) lecture on how changes in Roman politics are illustrated on their coinage, I wondered to what degree social and economic change in Turkey can be seen in the history of beverages.
The day before, I was to meet someone at an on-campus Starbucks, where I am particularly fond of the green tea. Both Starbucks and green tea are latecomers, unthinkable in the 1970s. Turkey was then a do-it-yourselfer, determined to make as many products as possible by itself and to keep foreign chains out and reduce imports to the essentials. This situation was aggravated by the Arab oil embargo of 1973, which caused oil prices to skyrocket. Not much of an oil producer, Turkey was forced to divert resources to pay for the higher cost of petroleum imports. Other items from abroad were ruthlessly cut.
In the mid-late 1970s, incredible as it may seem, coffee was hard to find. But the iconic coffee tradition developed during the Ottoman Empire, when Yemen, a growing area, was under its control. After the break-up of the empire, coffee had to be imported. Meanwhile, tea drinking became deeply entrenched. Tea cultivation here is fairly recent, taking off only in the late 1930s in the east end of Turkey’s Black Sea coast. Today the country is one of the world’s leading producers, Turks among the most ardent consumers. Tea is a cheap drink, affordable by all, and, served typically in tulip-shaped glasses, either plain or with sugar, never with lemon or milk.
The tea produced is black tea. In recent years, as the benefits of green tea have been extolled in the Health pages of newspapers, the local industry started marketing green tea in tea bag form. The result tastes like straw, so I splurge on Twinings or stock up on Chinese or Japanese tea when I’m abroad.
Newspapers have also publicized the benefits of pomegranate juice. The pomegranate – designated much more simply and conveniently in Turkish by the short word “nar” – is a large bush that has been growing happily since antiquity in Aegean and Mediterranean coastal regions. Everyone here knows the fruit, even if its labyrinth of bitter membranes and juicy red seeds makes eating it a challenge. Unknown until recently, however, was its high antioxident content. As soon as the public learned of this distinction, production of pomegranate juice soared. I have become a fan of pomegranate juice laced with vodka, a fortifying winter cocktail that I’m convinced protects against colds and flus.
Daisies with vodka, pomegranate juice, green tea, and rakı
Vodka was one of the beverages produced by Tekel, the state monopoly, until ten years ago when the monopoly was broken apart and privatized. Other Tekel products included rakı (the anisette drink, a national staple), gin (atrocious), and kanyak (= cognac), a brandy that flamed reliably and copiously when crepes suzette or some other dish needed to be flambéd. Lemon vodka was popular and easy to make. You inserted the zest of a lemon or two into the bottle in the morning, and by evening it was ready. At the nearby Gordion excavations conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, my graduate alma mater, lemon vodka has always had a featured spot in their pre-dinner cocktail hour. Lemon vodka was also a standard at Rejans, a legendary restaurant in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, founded by White Russian emigrés, ballerinas it was said, and patronized by Atatürk. I haven’t been there in a while, but it was perennially seedy but absolutely delightful with much character and charm.
The drinker today faces challenges. The ruling AK Party would no doubt like to ban sales of alcohol, on Islamic principle. That would outrage many, including a goodly number of AK Party supporters, not to mention tourists and those who cater to them. But slowly regulations are tightening. A few years ago in Konya, a notoriously conservative city, I went out to buy a can of beer. Although I was in the city center, the markets weren’t selling beer – a total contrast with, say, Antalya, a beach resort, where every market displays the blazon of Efes, the leading brand. Finally I located a small shop, almost anonymous. My can of beer was carefully wrapped in brown paper. I left the shop feeling I had done something naughty – or worse.
The city of Afyon has recently banned the sale and consumption of alcohol in public places. Licensed bars and restaurants are OK, but picknickers will no longer be able to enjoy a beer. In the meantime, the government raises ever higher the taxes on alcoholic beverages, and would no doubt be upset to lose this revenue. My local supermarket is decently stocked from around the world, a nice contrast wıth the resolutely local offerıngs of the 1970s, but for that bottle of Argentinian wine or Scotch whiskey one does pay a hefty premium.
I think they are warming up before exercise and the person in front may be their instructor. Demir Leather & Furniture
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