Friday, November 18, 2005

ISTANBUL PART II: THE BOSPHORUS AND BEYOND


Before launching into more churches and museums (sorry, no more dexters), let's start with a nice trip up the Bosphorus. While the weather was not the best (it reminded us of a non-raining day on a Seattle ferry), the views were spectacular. As we've mentnioned before, travel at this time of year may not be the best for tanning, it is nice for crowd reduction. We had two options: a tour with a guide (more spendy) or the regular ferry (2 hours up, 3 hours in a fishing village, 2 hours back: and no one to give you a clue what you are looking at). We chose the former and went with 12 other people on our own ferry. We all sat on the top deck and listened to the history of the Bosphorus. Let's start with the name. Boshporus means "cow's gate." It is told that Zeus, the king of Gods, got a bit frisky with a woman named Io. When Hera, his wife, found out she was a bit ticked off. Fearing for her safety, Zeus turned Io into a cow. Io jumped into the river and swam all the way to Egypt (one pretty buff cow)--the river was her gate to freedom (Zeus, of course, did not have to swim to Egypt but that's another story).




If you don't know, the land to the west of the Bosphorus is Europe while to the east is Asia. All along the trip from Istanbul to Anadolu Kavagi we could see castles and houses that must be pretty cool places to be. Some are hotels, some are museums, and others are the summer homes of the rich. We were told that these summer homes go for around $20 million. Anyone want to go in on a place?



Also as part of this tour we were taken to the Spice Market. If any of you know about Istanbul you know that there are outdoor markets here (the big one being the Grand Bazaar) where you can buy a lot of things BUT the prices are not set. We read about the process, got some good advice from our friends, BUT in the end I couldn't do it. I walked through the Grand Bazaar with sunglasses on and even in the Spice Market I walked as fast as I could. How does one decide on the price of a sponge, or tea, or gold, or a carpet?


I am sorry that I lost my nerve. If only I could have had someone to help me. I bet one of these locals could have helped me get a deal!!


By the way, we really enjoyed watching men here interact on the street. In Turkey and Bulgaria men seem to be the big talkers. If only we knew what they were saying!)




Now on to the museums: the first stop will be at the Kariye (Chora) Museum. “Chora” roughly means countryside and the “original” church received this name because when it was originally built (by Constantine in the 4th century) it was located outside the city walls. As most things from this era, the church was rebuilt several times and during the early part of the 14th century there were beautiful mosaics and frescos added. Of course these were covered during the centuries this church became a mosque, but have been partially restored.






The mosaics depict the lives of Christ and Mary. One of the domes has a stunning depiction of Jesus and his ancestors. No flash was allowed so the pictures just don’t do the place justice. One of the pictures I include here shows mosaics on the ceiling and wall in the second room. These show a bit in the life of Mary.


A side chapel, which was built to hold the tombs of the church’s founder and his relatives, is decorated with frescos. The themes of paintings are death and resurrection. Most striking is the paining known as the Anastasis showing Christ raising Adam and Eve out of their sarcophagi. Saints and kings surround him. Below his feet are the gates of hell.




Brent’s favorite museum is the Istanbul Archaeological Museums. There are three buildings here housing a variety of interesting artifacts. One is the Tiled Kiosk, which is beautiful outside and in. This building is considered to be the oldest surviving “nonreligious” Turkish building in Istanbul. It was used for watching sporting events. The tiles that have the best reputation are those that came from the Iznik region in the 17th and 18th centuries.






Another building here holds the Museum of the Ancient Orient. The stuff in here is really old. There are panels from ancient Babylon (600 BC) and a copy of the oldest surviving treaty (shown here).




The Kadesh Treaty was drawn up in the 13th century BC between the Egyptians and Hittites. I didn’t read its translation, but I did read the translations of some other very important stone documents. One was to break an engagement because “the woman preferred the farmer.”

The final building in this complex is the Archaeology Museum which displays Hellenic and Roman statues and sarcophagi. In one end of the museum is the “famous” Alexander sarcophagus dating from the last quarter of the 4th century BC. It is not Alexander’s sarcophagus, but that of King Abdalonymous.




It is called the Alexander sarcophagus because his figure appears on both sides. The pictures of this sarcophogus didn't turn out as clear as I'd like so I'll put another picture of Alexander here from the other side of the building. Pretty good looking guy! Several other rooms contain statues made by artisans at Anatolia’s main sculpture centers. Here’s another view through the rooms that show statues of Athena, Oceanus, and Zeus.


This is getting us really in the mood for our trip to Athens. Still, there is so much to do. We are winding down in terms of our classes, but the grading never seems to end. We are taking off for Thanksgiving, then we will head down to Athens the first part of December. Travel is getting a bit more “iffy” as winter has come to Bulgaria. It has been snowing for the last couple of days and we are hoping that it is just a brief cold snap.



We'll end here with a picture of Brent in front of our Sofia apartment (Alexander in clothes). We'll definately miss that place!


Happy Thanksgiving to you all. We'll be back soon.

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Instanbul Part I: A ROOM WITH A VIEW (and yet another dexter)



Sorry its been so long since we've posted. The trip to Istanbul was fabulous. We stayed at a refurbished Ottoman "wooden house" that had Becky's dream of "A Room With A View" (don't go to sleep on this one Steve!). From our room we looked out over the Marmara Sea. We would rise shortly after the 6am "call to pray" from our local mosque and watch the ships as they headed north to the Bosphorus through to the Black Sea (or in reverse to the Agean Sea).

The hotel provided breakfast up on the terrace. From there you could look get an even broader view of the sea, but could look up the hill to the Blue Mosque. This mosque was built between 1606-1616 by Sultan Ahmet I. His goal was to build something that would outshine the Aya Sofya (coming shortly). We hear it was quite controversial with its six minarets as the only other mosque with as many is in Mecca. The courtyard in front of the main entrance is claimed to be the largest of all Ottoman mosques. The name ("blue") refers to the color of the Iznik tiles that are part of the interior. No flash is allowed inside any of the buildings here, so maybe our camera breaking in Hungary was a "good thing." [This is a cool picture if enlarged. It's better than some of the postcards of the mosque interior, if I do say so myself.]

Leaving the Blue Mosque we headed to Aya Sofya. It is also called Sancta Sophia, Hagia Sophia, and the Church of the Divine Wisdom. It was built/started by Emperor Justinian in the early-mid 6th century. The outside is pretty impressive (note, of course, the minarets added by Mehmet the Conqueror after his conquest of Constantinople in 1453), but again we found the inside to overwhelm the senses. While its the huge dome that has been the marvel historically (30m in diameter) scaffolding set up by UNESCO for restoration made it appear somewhat small. Instead, we wandered around the two floors looking at what is left of the gold mosaic tiles. I say "what is left" because some have worn, but also many were "casualties of theology."

First, there was some discussion about their appropriateness as the Bible makes clear that "images" should not be worshipped. After some serious debate, however, most of the mosaics stayed. However, with the Conquest, they had to go. Islamic art (as laid out in the Quran, the story goes) shouldn't depict anything with an immortal soul.


As luck would have it, many were covered in plaster and later restored. It is pretty hard to pick just one for the blog. But here's my choice for "mosaic of the day." [Another "must enlarge" picture.]

Istanbul has so many outstanding museums. Several can be found in the complex known as Topkapi Palace (home to the Sultans). Mehmet the Conqueror bulit the first stage of the palace and lived here until his death in 1481. It remained the home to Sultans until Mahmut II (1839). After this time, Sultans moved to other palaces built along the Bosphorus (we have pictures of those too if you are interested). Because of limited time (I have 34 midterms to grade this weekend), I've decided to make comments on only two parts of this palace complex.

One is the Topkapi Harem (or the private quarters of the Sultan). Here is the story we were told: the women of the Harem were schooled in Islam and Turkish culture and language as well as music, reading,writing and dance. They could leave after a period of time and could marry (Free education. Sounds good- huh?). The Sultan was allowed by Islamic law to have four legitimate wives, but could support many more concubines. Our guide said only up to 12 "favorites" were kept for sexual relations, while the rest (could be hundreds) were only for entertainment (each required to play a musical instrument) But this may not always have been the case as Murat III is reported to have had 112 children, so go figure (not sounding like as much fun anymore). The picture shown here has Becky in the Harem--yikes, get me outa here. The reason I picked this is to highlight the gorgeous tiles and point out the great "turban shelves." (Also, I heard that my mom likes to see pictures of me.)

The other interesting museum in the palace complex is the Treasury. I am not including a picture of it (not interesting from the outside, and no pictures allowed inside) but rather a picture of another interesting exterior shot (the Circumcision Room). So, inside the Treasury are some pretty amazing things. There are 48kg candlesticks, jewel encrusted swords and thrones (one beautiful one "received" from India), and the "spoonmaker's" diamond. This teardrop shaped stone is 86 carats and was worn by Mehmet IV at his coronation. The reason for its name is that it was found at a garbage dump and sold by a street vendor for three spoons. But now we reach the most interesting item (I leave it up to you to decide its authenticity). Displayed in a lighted case was a skull and hand fragments (cased in jewels) of St. John the Baptist. This trip is turning into the tour of "dexters" isn't it?

I must take a break from blogging (and my sister leaves work in an hour--so here you go Pam). You'll need to stay tuned for Istanful, Part II. Not sure what the theme will be-- but I'm sure it will include more mosaics and maybe a bit on the Bosphorus.


Until then I leave you with a picture with some relevance to us here in Bulgaria. This completely (inside and out) cast-iron church was constructed from pieces shipped down the Danube and across the Balck Sea from Vienna on 100 barges in 1871. During the time of the Ottoman Empire the Orthodox church faced considerable "ethnic" divisions. The leader, a Greek, wanted no recognition of ethnic divisions, but only ONE church. The pressures of nationalism were too great and the sultan was forced to recongizse some sort of religious autonomy for the Bulgars. The gates were locked, but the caretaker let us in for a look. Inside we found icons of the now-known-by-us Ivan Rilski. A little bit of "home."