Fulbright-Hays Seminar in Turkey - Summer 1999

Annotated Slides

Heidi Goar

Introduction

The following forty-eight slides represent a general theme of Turkish culture, with a focus on Islam. Several slides look at children, costume, and customs experienced. Others focus on religion as it has evolved over several centuries. The dominant theme is Turkey’s most common religion.

Group Slides

Slide #1: METU Entrance with Fulbright group

Middle East Technical University (METU) sponsored our group while we were in Anakara. METU offered our group numerous seminars focusing on dozens of aspects of Turkish culture. Topics included: religion, politics, economics, history, and language lessons. In this slide, our group poses in front of the METU entrance. It is important to note that is Turkey, only a very small portion of the population attends college. In most colleges, students are taught in English.

Slide #2: Fulbright group with METU president

In this slide, our group poses with the METU president, Suha Sevuk. The faculty and staff at METU were clearly quite proud to have us. They made sure we had beverages, snacks, excellent lunches, and provided guides for some of our tours. Providing more than your guest needs is a very popular custom in Turkey.

Ankara

Slide #3: View of Anakara

Ankara’s a very modern city, with only a small older portion. This slide, taken from the old city, shows the incredible number of mosques scattered around the city. The sun is reflecting off of the many domes of the mosques.

Culture

Slide #4: Women with Child

This slide shows a child held by his mother. These two were outside our hotel as we left one morning. The family appears to be relatively economically deprived. The woman wears a headscarf; it is difficult to determine if she wears a scarf because she a conservative Muslim, or because she is from a village, or both. This is an interesting aspect of headscarves.

Slide #5: Woman with headscarf with man

Here is an out-of-focus shot of a covered woman with her husband? Or her brother? Is a conservative Muslim woman is seen in public with a man, he must be her husband, father, brother, uncle, some member of her family. Note that this woman is fully covered including the traditional trenchcoat.

Slide #6: Panel discussion on headscarves at METU

This slide shows a panel discussion, held at METU, focusing on the Turkish "headscarf" issue. The young women on the left are actively protesting what they perceive as their right to wear headscarves in public classrooms. The other students object to their wearing scarves. This issue does not seem to be divided between the two main denominations, Sunni and Alevi. Instead a fundamentalist Muslim can be Sunni or Alevi.

Slide #7: Village children

These children sit atop a dung heap on the edge of a small village along the Silk Road. Children in Turkey are generally quite independent. They are also fascinated both by foreigners and high tech cameras some carried around. Dung is used for fuel.

Slide #8: Wool dyeing

Here are large caldrons used to dye wool for weaving carpets. The wool has been taken from the sheep, carded, spun, and then dyed using natural ingredients (slide 10).

Slide #9: Wool dyeing

Here, wool is hung dyeing before being used to weave carpets. Various classic carpets hand under the skeins.

Slide #10: Dyeing ingredients

Here large pots of the natural ingredients used to dye the wool. You might be able to read the pots: walnut, sage, etc.

Slide #11: Fountain to rinse wool

The Turks are great artists. Here shows a fountain used to wash the dyed wool before woven into rugs. It suspiciously resembles an Islamic fountain used to wash before entering a Mosque.

Slide #12: Weaving

Here a woman is weaving a carpet. Women start working with the easiest materials to manipulate, wool-on-wool, and graduate to silk-on-silk, which uses many more knots per square inch than the wool carpets. Many carpets depict religious and cultural experiences of the local peoples.

Konya

Slide #13: Konya

Our group looks out over the ton Konya. This is very conservative part of Turkey and truly the only part I felt the citizens held prejudice against Western women. A minaret can be seen in the setting sun.

Cappadocia

Slide #14: Caves

Cappadocia is an area south of Ankara famous for its basal caves where Christians lived, and hid from aggressive and attention-span deprived Arabs. Christians lives here between the 7th and 13th centuries and many communes were established.

Slide #15: Rock formations

Amazing rock formation of the area. These formations were formed by four now inactive volcanoes of the area.

Slide #16: More caves

A scene of the Cappadocian area from a different angle. People rarely live in these caves today, although occasionally they are occupied by domesticated animals. Pigeons live in many of these caves today.

Slide #17: Goreme

Goreme was a monastery during the 3rd century. Considering how aggressive the anti-Christian movement was both before and during the Ottoman Empire, it is amazing there are so many early Christian relics still here. Beyond the doorways of this monastery, there are dozens of Christian icons on the walls of these caves.

Slide #18: Kimacele

Here is a side of a living room in an "underground" city in which Christians hid from Arabs. The amazing labyrinth inside and under these basalt hills cannot be conveyed in a photo.

Slide #19: Kimacele

A storage area, perhaps for food and wine, in the underground maze of Kimacele. Some 2000 Christians could have lived in these underground caves for quite some time. It is still not terribly well understood how they managed this.

Slide #20: Goreme

The chapel of the ancient monastery at Goreme is shown here. Inside, impressive icons frescoed onto walls still remain. The Muslims later gouged the eyes of the icons as they believed the "gods" would then be rendered powerless.

Slide #21: More caves

Another view of the basalt cave in which Christians lived during the 3rd century.

On the Silk Road

Slide #22: Caravansary

On the famous Silk Road, the caravansary was a stopover for those on their pilgrimage to Mecca. This slide shows the inner courtyard where pilgrims conducted their daily prayers. Beyond is the doorway to the Silk Road. Along the sides is where the pilgrim slept, bathed, ate, etc.

Slide #23: Caravansary

Looking out of the area in which the animals and carts were kept at the caravansary. notable, this area is at least as large as the rest of the structure where the people stayed and worshipped.

Side

Slide #24: Athenian Temple

This Athenian temple stand at the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It shows the power of the Greeks and their amazing ability for art and architecture. As with most religions, the Greeks build large-then-life temple to their gods and goddesses. This temple is at the ancient city of Side.

Myra/Demre

Slide #25: Ruins at Myra

Here is shown the ancient site of what is later known as the home of St. Nicholas. But before that, Myra was a Lycian and then Greek city. When studying these, and other ancient ruins of Turkey, the evolution of human culture is fascinating to trace. Clearly on of the most influential aspects of this cultural evolution is religion, or perception of outside forces. Hence the famous burial sites Lycians built which were very tall as they believed these would help the dead into heaven.

Slide #26: Ruins at Myra

Here, I am posed over a ruin depicting Medusa in the ancient city of Myra. Medusa is a dangerous goddess, usually placed outside building and cities to ward off evil spirits. Her mount is always open, depicting the female vagina, and her hair is curly, depicting the female pubic hair. It is no surprise that both Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions often also depict women as evil.

Aspendos

Slide #27: Ampitheather

This ampitheater is considered the largest and best preserved in Anatolia. Greco-Roman theaters were filled with depictions of their religious figures, i.e. Dionysus, Athenia, etc. While the Greeks placed their theaters against slopes for a greater view, the Romans altered these in an effort to reduce distractions, such as the sea seen in the background in this slide.

Heiropilois

Slide #28: Ampitheater

One of many theaters visited, this one dates from 200BC during the reign of Hadrian. The distinction of this one is the amazingly well preserved stage.

Troy

Slide #29: Site of Troy?

While it is difficult to determine whether this ancient site is truly this epic town, it is still intriguing to imagine it is the truth. Here we see some of the "levels" of this town. Troy, as in Homer's famous poem, is believed to be on level VIIa. Troy also holds Graeco-Roman ruins. But, probably less known is that Constantine, founder of the Eastern Christian world, thought Troy might be a good spot for his capital city; instead, Byzantium was chosen. This is seen on level IX.

Slide #30: Levels of Troy

Here is a not-so-perfect view of the levels of Troy.

Perge

Slide #31: Ruins

Perge is an ancient Anatolian city which holds ruins that span three historical periods. This particular slide shows the outer Roman walls surrounding the older Hellenistic towers.

Slide #32: Wall ruins

Another angle showing the Hellenistic tower at the end of the man drag. It is important to note that this was a Byzantine city after its Roman period, making it one the major Christian cities of its epoch. Thus, within these ancient Greco-Roman walls are signs of pagan and Christian belief systems.

Mosques

Slide #33: Mosque and Church

While Turkey is a secular country that insures religious freedom to its citizens, it is not common to see churches or synagogues. Here is an unusual sight, a mosque and a church within a few yards of one another. Ironically, the popular religion of rapid consumption is also contained in this slide, the temple to McDonalds.

Slide #34: Small church

Here is tiny church which stands across from a tiny mosque. The mosque is certainly quite old, as it has no minarets.

Slide #35: Small mosque

This shows the outside of an extremely small and very old mosque in Old Ankara. note the man praying outside the sacred spot just right of the mosque entrance.

Slide #36: Byzantine church

This is the original church of the Byzantine Empire. Very quaint, it was replaced by the Aya Sophia in the 6th century.

Slide #37: Women in mosque

Here are two lovely women we met in the women's area in a mosque in Ankara. This area seemed to be one place where women interacted freely. In fact, when women interact on the street, they are quite distant. The difference was incredible in the mosque. They chatted with us, helped us understand what we should do, guided us through the processes of taking off our shoes, and showed us that we could move around the mosque freely and encouraged us to take pictures.

Slide #38: Minbar

This is a slide of an Islam minbar (pulpit) in which the imam (priest) stands on the fourth step to deliver the Friday prayer. He mustn't stand on the top step, it is for Allah, the second step is for Abraham, the third is for Mohammed, the fourth is for the imam. This mosque is in old Ankara. Note little decoration in mosque and no icons.

Slide #39: Prayer carpets

Prayer carpets in an old mosque in Ankara. Around the corner are three women who were overwhelmingly kind to us. Although no one spoke one another's language, they smiled and hugged us. Remember, women are separated from men in most mosques.

Slide #40: Minbar

As all important and sacred parts of the mosque, the minbar faces Mecca. Here we look toward the minbar of this old mosque. Note the huge pillars made of Cypress tree trunks of this very old mosque.

Slide #41: Prayer carpets

All mosque floors are covered with prayer carpets. All face Mecca. This slide is classic. Here is a sea of elegantly simple prayer rugs on which the worshipper remain and prays ideally five time per day.

Slide #42: Stained glass

Stained glass is rare in mosques, unlike most Christian cathedrals. The Suleymaniye Cami is a mosque built during the 16century. Here are some of the famous stained glass windows of this mosque.

Slide #43: Stained glass

Again, the rare example of stained glass in an Islamic mosque.

Slide #44: Mihrab

Under these stained glass windows is the Suleymaniye Cami is the mihrab. This area is used to read and study the Koran.

Istanbul

Slide #45: Istanbul

This is beautiful Istanbul. In the background the famous Blue Mosque and the Aya Sophia can be seen in dominate the skyline of the European side of the ancient city.

Slide #46: Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque is the largest Mosque in Turkey. It is called the "blue" mosque because of its lovely blue floral tiles which cover the inner walls of the mosque. Here is the courtyard of the mosque. The courtyard of mosques are sacred and usually hold a fountain which is where worshippers might wash before entering the mosque.

Slide #47: Aya Sophia

The Aya Sophia was originally build during the Byzantine Empire as a cathedral. It was then converted into a mosque during the Ottoman Empire. Here we see the minbar, which had been converted from the pulpit. Note also the calligraphy as seen in many mosques, which communicate sacred ideas or people in Arabic.

Slide #48: Aya Sophia