As part of a campaign to block loans to foreign museums with disputed objects in their collections, Turkey is refusing to lend artifacts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, The Art Newspaper reported. The Met told the newspaper that a dozen antiquities in its collection are now being claimed by Turkey, but would not identify the individual items, saying the matter was “under discussion with the Turkish authorities.” And Tolga Tuyluoglu, who runs Turkey’s culture and tourism office in London, confirmed to the newspaper that claims for the return of two artifacts in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert are being pursued, adding that his government wants to resolve the issues “before discussing loans for exhibitions.” The British Museum had requested loans of 35 items for its current exhibition “Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam,” but the ministry of culture blocked them, leaving the museum to find alternatives on short notice.
via Turkey Bars Loans to Museums in New York and London – NYTimes.com.
Determining the social relationships between populations in the past can be difficult. Trading can be inferred from the presence of artifacts like pottery with foreign designs, or non-local foods. Warfare can be determined from the presence of mass graves or cemeteries of adult males displaying trauma, or well used weaponry. However, trauma is not always a sign of conflict with other populations. It can also reflect the normal struggles of daily life or interpersonal violence in the community. Skeletal collections with trauma found from the Neolithic period in Anatolia suggest that injury was caused by daily activities and lifestyle, rather than systematic violence. However, shortly after this period there is an increase in trauma associated with violence that may suggest an increase in stress within and between populations in this area. In order to examine this conclusion, a new article by Erdal (2012) looks at the skeletal remains of a potential massacre from the Early Bronze Age in Turkey.
The human remains come from the site of Titris Hoyuk, and date to 2900-2100 BCE. The site grew very quickly in this period from a small farming community to an urban center with large walls. Within one of the house structures, a burial was found in a plaster basin beneath the floors. While the location and basin are not that unique, the state of the individuals is. Instead of the normal burials recovered from these basins, they found a large number of disarticulated remains with the crania placed at the top. Based on the strata of the burial, it is unknown whether this burial was created in a single moment or over time. Given there layout and the slight connection of some of the remains, it is more likely there was a single burial period rather than multiple. Since the bones were commingled, determining the number of individuals requires counting the number of repeating bony elements. The researchers looked at crania and the long bones. From this they argue there are a minimum number of 13 adult males, 3 adult females and 3 sub-adults. This burial dates to the end of this period, approximately 2200-2100 BCE.
The trauma analysis was done using the cranial remains. Trauma was classified as premortem (before death), perimortem (sustained at death) or postmortem (after death). This is determined by looking at the wound for evidence of healing that would indicate it was sustained prior to death, or bright white coloration which means it was sustained after death (potentially caused by damage done during the excavation or collapse of the grave over time). Location of the trauma and appearance was recorded, as well as shape of the wound in order to determine potential weapons. When looking at the appearance and shape, Erdal (2012) recorded whether there was the appearance of radiating concentric lines indicative of blunt force trauma, or V shaped inward fractures indicative of sharp force trauma.
The results of the study showed that 11 of the 13 males had sign of one or more cranial traumas, only 1 female had signs of trauma, and there was no sign of trauma in the sub-adults. Of them, 13 of the 14 cranial traumas were unhealed and suggestive of perimortem damage. Most individuals suffered multiple wounds, resulting in a total of 26 unhealed cranial traumas for the entire sample. The most frequent appearance was inward beveling with concentric fractures radiating from the center, 23 of these were penetrating completely through the bone, and they were primarily found on the parietal bones. Comparing size of the wounds, Erdal (2012) found that they occurred in two specific clusters, which potentially means there were two types of weapon used.
Identifying violence in the past from skeletal remains can be difficult, and many archaeologists argue that the presence of embedded weapons is the only true indicator. However, trauma found on skulls caused by blunt or sharp weapons are a fairly good indicator of conflict, warfare or massacre according to Erdal (2012). The presence of such a high number of perimortem wounds, all in the same area and occurring on the majority of individuals in a single mass grave all point to the conclusion that their deaths, or at least injuries, were not accidental. Combining this with the evidence of fortifications around the city suggests that these individuals were killed by intruders rather than interpersonal violence. Comparing the two types of injury clusters with weapons from this period leads to the conclusion that they were caused by battle axes in the case of the larger injuries, and dagger or spears for the smaller ones.
Erdal (2012) aruges that “the frequency of perimortem trauma increases during periods of environmental deterioration, population growth, political breakdown and competition over resources while sub-lethal cranial trauma are observable during all periods”. Since Turkey was going through a period of environmental, as well as cultural, change, it is likely that violence was one of the consequences. Combining this data with other sites from this period in Turkey may reveal an overall trend of increased violence in the Neolithic to Bronze Age transition. The conclusion is based on a fairly extensive amount of evidence, and is argued very well. There is even a discussion of the meaning behind the plaster basins the individuals were found in. This is a good example of combining bioarchaeology with the contextual evidence, both in the grave and mortuary setting, but also the broader cultural and environmental context.
Works Cited
ResearchBlogging.orgErdal, O.D. (2012). A possible massacre at Early Bronze Age Titriş Höyük, Anatolia International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 22 (1), 1-21 DOI: 10.1002/oa.1177
via Evidence of Massacre in Ancient Turkey | Bones Don’t Lie.
ISTANBUL — For 1,600 years, this city — Turkey’s largest — has been built and destroyed, erected and erased, as layer upon layer of life has thrived on its seven hills.
Haldun Aydingun
BUILDING BLOCKS Hundreds of bricks stamped “Konstans,” made in Constantinople starting in the fifth century, were found at Bathonea.
Today, Istanbul is a city of 13 million, spread far beyond those hills. And on a long-farmed peninsula jutting into Lake Kucukcekmece, 13 miles west of the city center, archaeologists have made an extraordinary find.
The find is Bathonea, a substantial harbor town dating from the second century B.C. Discovered in 2007 after a drought lowered the lake’s water table, it has been yielding a trove of relics from the fourth to the sixth centuries A.D., a period that parallels Istanbul’s founding and its rise as Constantinople, a seat of power for three successive empires — the Eastern Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman.
While there are some historical records of this early period, precious few physical artifacts exist. The slim offerings in the Istanbul section of the Archaeological Museums here reflect that, paling in comparison with the riches on display from Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Lebanon.
So Bathonea (pronounced bath-oh-NAY-uh) has the potential to become a “library of Constantinople,” says Sengul Aydingun, the archaeologist who made the initial discovery.
After the drought exposed parts of a well-preserved sea wall nearly two and a half miles long, Dr. Aydingun and her team soon saw that the harbor had been equipped with docks, buildings and a jetty, probably dating to the fourth century. Other discoveries rapidly followed. In the last dig season alone, the archaeologists uncovered port walls, elaborate buildings, an enormous cistern, a Byzantine church and stone roads spanning more than 1,000 years of occupation.
“The fieldwork Sengul has conducted over the last few years is spectacular,” said Volker Heyd, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol in England who surveyed Bathonea for two field seasons. “The discoveries made are now shedding a completely new light to the wider urbanized area of Constantinopolis. A fantastic story begins to unveil.”
In 2008, for example, Hakan Oniz, an archaeologist from Eastern Mediterranean University who specializes in underwater research, investigated a structure in the lake that local lore held was some kind of mystical minaret that appeared and disappeared in relation to the rate of sinful behavior by nearby villagers. The ruins, about 800 feet from shore, may have been a lighthouse.
Since then, Dr. Aydingun’s team and researchers from eight foreign universities have found a second, older port on the peninsula’s eastern side, its Greek influences suggesting that it dated to about the second century B.C.
Nearby, atop the round foundations of a Greek temple, they found the remains of a fifth- or sixth-century Byzantine church and cemetery with 20 burials, and a large stone relief of a Byzantine cross. Coins, pottery and other artifacts indicate that the church suffered damage in the devastating earthquake of 557 but was in use until 1037, when a tremor leveled it — crushing three men whose bodies were found beneath a collapsed wall, along with a coin bearing the image of a minor emperor who ruled during the year of the quake.
After bushwhacking through nettle-choked underbrush a mile and a half north of the harbor, the researchers excavated a 360-by-90-foot open-air cistern or pool, as well as walls and foundations from several multistory buildings that may have been part of a villa or palace altered over many centuries.
Because the archaeologists are at the beginning of a multiyear dig at a site not known from historical sources, they are hesitant to draw many conclusions. Even the name Bathonea is a placeholder, inspired by two ancient references: the first-century historian Pliny the Elder’s “Natural History,” which refers to the river feeding the lake as Bathynias; and a work by a ninth-century Byzantine monk, Theophanes, who called the region Bathyasos.
“There is a big question mark over the name,” Dr. Aydingun said. “It’s too early to say. But the name is not important. The important thing to note is that there are buildings, roads” where “people thought there was nothing.”
“But there’s something there,” she went on. “We need a lifetime to discover what it is. But even by next year, we’ll be able to say more.”
A version of this article appeared in print on January 24, 2012, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: After Being Stricken by Drought, Istanbul Yields Ancient Treasure.
via Istanbul Yields a Treasure Trove in Ancient Bathonea – NYTimes.com.
Under the elegant, soaring arches of Istanbul’s newly restored, 16th century Süleymaniye Mosque, dozens of security cameras keep an eye on visitors’ every move. Vigilant security guards patrol indoors and out. Turkey, police say, is becoming the epicenter of an international market for stolen Islamic art, and Turkish mosques and museums alike are on high alert.
As the international art market has turned its attention – and resources – to Islamic art, Istanbul has become a growing hub for stolen artifacts. Sixty-eight thousand historical objects were recovered in 2010 by the police, causing cultural sites like Istanbul’s famed Süleymaniye Mosque, above, to tighten security. (Photo: Jonathan Lewis)
That means the responsibilities of the imam at Süleymaniye Mosque, widely considered the city’s most magnificent, now include not only looking after the people’s faith, but, increasingly, the valuable contents of the mosque itself.
“We are more comfortable with the presence of the security guards. We feel this place is secure,” said Imam Ayhan Mansiz. “Thank God, we didn’t experience any theft. Our mosque is safe. The restoration has just been completed and everything is listed and categorized, and the most valuable items are now in museums.”
The tight security provisions are all part of the Turkish state’s battle against the growing scourge of thefts of Islamic art from Turkish mosques and museums. Be it historic Korans, intricate wall tiles or even wooden paneling, all items are potential candidates for theft, an unwelcome by-product of an international boom in demand for Islamic art. There are no official figures for losses, but anecdotal evidence suggests they are significant.
“The overall turnover in the market has risen hugely,” commented William Robinson, director of the Islamic Art and Carpet Departments at the London-based auction house, Christie’s. Robinson traces the heightened interest in Islamic art back to 1997, “when Qatar entered the market.”
In the years since, “the overall trend has been very strongly upward, particularly in the last two or three years,” he continued. “I think it could be even a 30 or 40-percent-a-year increase, which is huge.”
Such activity has not gone unnoticed by organized crime. Turkish officials claim that Istanbul is now a regional hub for stolen Islamic art, with the city’s famed Grand Bazaar the epicenter for the trade.
Deep within the Bazaar’s labyrinth of streets and alleyways, packed with vendors selling fake Gucci bags and cheap T-shirts, are people who can find, for the right price, prized Islamic artifacts — as long as there are no questions asked about where and how the items are secured, said one Turkish police detective.
“You have gangs of three or four people stealing from museums or mosques and they bring the artifacts to the Grand Bazaar, where there are dealers who have contacts in Europe,” said detective Ismail Sahin, who, until 2011, headed the Istanbul Police’s department for ancient stolen artifacts. “The Bazaar also deals with stolen artifacts from across the region.”
Sahin, who holds a master’s degree in archaeology, has led many successful raids on the Bazaar. That experience, along with his retrieval of numerous stolen artifacts, helped him outline how Turkey fits into the international trade in stolen Islamic art.
“In many cases, specific orders come from Europe. Sometimes the [Bazaar] middle-men will get an order from Europe for a specific item, and they will then commission a gang to steal it,” he continued. “It is very difficult for us, as most mosques and even some museums don’t even have inventories or proper protection.”
Despite Sahin’s zeal for his work, he was reassigned last year to an Istanbul suburb to solve mundane local crimes. “Maybe one too many raids on the Bazaar,” he speculated. “There are many powerful people operating there.”
Security forces are claiming increased success in tracking down artifacts being smuggled out of the country. In 2010, official records show that 68,000 historical artifacts were recovered from nearly 5,000 people. Those convicted of theft is such cases could face up to 20-year prison terms.
But the museums and foundations responsible for the protection of Turkey’s cultural heritage also are mobilizing to stop the thefts of Islamic art. Last May, the first international meeting in Istanbul on illegal trafficking in historical artifacts brought art experts, police and auction houses together to discuss ways to tackle the problem.
Despite repeated attempts to speak to a representative of Turkish museums responsible for combating thefts, all requests were rejected. No reason was given.
Joachim Gierlich, former curator of the Qatar Islamic Art Museum, looks to social networking, computer technologies and old-fashioned human cooperation to curb the trade. “I believe one can only win the fight if one uses modern technologies, having a very good and complete documentation to know what actually is in the museums and what is in the foundations and so on, and make this accessible,” Gierlich said. “If there is extensive use of [a] database, put it to the extreme and place it even on Facebook.”
International auction houses, too, are becoming increasingly concerned, “It’s a very serious issue because it’s completely against our interests for illegal things to appear on the market, let alone with us. Because it knocks the whole market,” said Robinson of Christie’s.
Yet despite the growing recognition of the problem, an ostrich mentality does appear to persist among some governments. Robinson recounted one instance when “for reasons of national pride,” the an ambassador denied to him that a major theft of Islamic art had occurred in the envoy’s home nation, even though Robinson already had confirmation elsewhere about the incident. “That attitude is never going to be helpful in the long term,” Robinson warned.
Back at the Süleymanie mosque, the faithful express awareness of the problem and its magnitude. “This is the reality of life in Istanbul. Today people even steal your shoes from a mosque,” one worshipper, a 40-year-old shopkeeper, commented angrily. “There are many desperate people in the city, who will do anything, however evil, for money. But they will get their punishment in this life or the next.”
Editor’s note:
Dorian Jones is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul.
Fuat Sezgin founded two museums in İstanbul and Frankfurt that bring together hundreds of replicas of scientific instruments, tools and maps, mostly belonging to the golden age of Islamic science.(PHOTO Sunday’s Zaman)
25 December 2011 / MAHMUT ÇEBI, İSTANBUL
Fuat Sezgin, a Turkish researcher and historian who has devoted his life to uncovering the roots of Islamic civilization and how big a role the Islamic world played in the emergence of today’s modern civilization, has always found it astonishing that so little is known about the scientific achievements of the Islamic world.
Known as the “conqueror of a missing treasure,” Sezgin was inspired by Helmut Ritter, a renowned 20th century German scholar of oriental studies and someone who used to teach courses on Islamic sciences and orientalism at İstanbul University.
Ritter inspired Sezgin to begin his search for the Islamic scholars’ contributions to modern science. Sezgin defines the moment he met with Ritter as “the time when I was born again.” He said Ritter told him to read at least 17 hours a day if he wanted to become a real scholar.
During one of Ritter’s courses, Sezgin asked him whether or not there was an important Islamic mathematician and was surprised by his answer: “There are as many mathematicians in the Islamic world as there are great figures in Greece and Europe,” Ritter said. The reason why Sezgin was astonished by Ritter’s answer was due to the fact that one of his teachers at primary school told him that Muslims scholars used to believe that the earth was located on the horn of an ox.
Sezgin said it was following the statements by Professor Ritter that he started to take notice of the fact that the Islamic world had made significant contributions to the history of general sciences and decided to search for what those contributions were.
“From that day on, I decided to learn about the contributions of the Islamic world to science and to make a contribution to science myself if possible. Despite my young age, I assumed the responsibility of writing the ‘History of Islamic Sciences.’ I worked day and night on that book,” Sezgin said.
Sezgin decided to first address the question of “when Islamic narration began and from which period on it is possible to talk about written Islamic documents.” After graduating from the faculty of literature of İstanbul University in 1947, Sezgin received his Ph.D. in 1954 for his work on Arab language and literature. In 1954 he became an associate professor with his work titled “Buhari’nin Kaynakları” (Sources of Bukhari).
Bukhari refers to Muhammad al-Bukhari, a Sunni Islamic scholar from Persia who authored the Hadith collection titled “Sahih al-Bukhari.” In his book, Sezgin claims that Bukhari relied on written sources for the Hadith, and not oral sources as is widely believed.
During his years as a student, Sezgin also read Carl Brockelmann’s five-volume “History of Arab Literature,” which was written based on manuscripts in Europe and İstanbul. Sezgin found out that this book, which details chronological information about manuscripts and gives tips to researchers on how to access these manuscripts, did not include information about many Muslim authors. Brockelmann, who used to come to İstanbul occasionally for a one-month’s stay, did not have sufficient time before his death to expand his body of work. Upon noticing that most of the written Islamic sources were not included in Brockelmann’s work, Sezgin decided to complete his work, which would mean examining hundred of thousands of works, something that would last for decades.
Sezgin was not the only person who wanted to complete Brockelmann’s work, as a group of European scholars made a similar attempt in the 1950s under the leadership of the Brill Publishing House, which published German translations of Arabic works. This group of scholars was able to complete Brockelmann’s work thanks to financial support from UNESCO.
Sezgin travelled to Germany for several times during 1957 and 1958, where he worked at University of Bonn. The scholar improved his German to the extent that he began offering his courses in German. Although he was asked to stay at the university, Sezgin declined the offer and returned to Turkey, where he established the Islamic Sciences Research Institute with Zeki Velidi Togan, a Turkish historian.
The May 27, 1960 military coup was a turning point in Sezgin’s life. He said that even though two of his brothers were jailed in the aftermath of the coup, he tried to continue his studies but was shocked by the news of the removal of 147 professors from the university.
“As I was going to the institute one morning, I was shocked to hear a boy selling newspapers telling me about the removal of 147 professors from the university. I was either the 40th or 50th among the professors who were removed. I did not want to leave my country, but when I was removed from the university, I saw that I had no other choice. I went to the Süleymaniye Library and wrote letters to my friends, two Americans and the former rector of Frankfurt University, asking them whether they could find me a place to continue my studies as I had been expelled from the university. I received positive responses from all three of them within a month. I chose to work in Frankfurt. On the evening of my departure from Turkey, I went to the Karaköy side of the Galata Bridge. I watched Üsküdar for about 15 or 20 minutes. It was a beautiful night, but I had to wipe my tears. I was not angry but sad,” he said.
Sezgin began offering courses at the University of Frankfurt as a visiting professor in 1961, where he was very well liked by his students due to his disciplined work ethic and character.
In 1967, the first volume of Sezgin’s “Islam’s Golden Age of Science,” which was an expansion of Brockelmann’s work, was published, receiving widespread acclaim in academic circles.
Visiting more than 60 countries, Sezgin examined works in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, animal breeding, veterinary medicine, agriculture, medicine, astronomy and geography for the “History of Islamic Sciences,” and brought these works, which were kept on the dusty shelves of the libraries of many countries, to light so that they could be accessed by researchers.
The number of volumes of his study reached 15 over the years.
Sezgin founded a unique museum in 1983, bringing together more than 800 replicas of historical scientific instruments, tools and maps, mostly belonging to the golden age of Islamic science. A similar museum was opened in 2008 in İstanbul.
The 87-year-old Sezgin still works 14 hours a day. He plans to publish the 16th and 17th volumes of his study of Islamic sciences next year, which will deal with “literary sciences in the Arabic language.”
Due to his contribution to science in Europe, Sezgin has been awarded the Great Medal for Distinguished Service of the Federal Republic of Germany Although he has been living abroad away for roughly a half century, he is still a Turkish citizen and declined offers from Germany to be granted German citizenship.
Manuscripts confiscated from American tourist arriving in Cairo from Istanbul
Nevine El-Aref , Sunday 27 Nov 2011
a manuscript
The archaeological unit at Cairo Airport confiscated a collection of authentic Ottoman manuscripts from an American tourist arriving from Istanbul this morning.
Archaeologists confirmed their authenticity but are unsure if they belong to Egypt or Turkey.
Hassan Rasmi, head of the Confiscation Department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) told Ahram Online that all legal procedures would be taken to return the manuscripts their homeland, whether in Egypt or Turkey.
via Ottoman manuscripts recovered at Cairo Airport – Islamic – Heritage – Ahram Online.
Determining the social relationships between populations in the past can be difficult. Trading can be inferred from the presence of artifacts like pottery with foreign designs, or non-local foods. Warfare can be determined from the presence of mass graves or cemeteries of adult males displaying trauma, or well used weaponry. However, trauma is not always a sign of conflict with other populations. It can also reflect the normal struggles of daily life or interpersonal violence in the community. Skeletal collections with trauma found from the Neolithic period in Anatolia suggest that injury was caused by daily activities and lifestyle, rather than systematic violence. However, shortly after this period there is an increase in trauma associated with violence that may suggest an increase in stress within and between populations in this area. In order to examine this conclusion, a new article by Erdal (2012) looks at the skeletal remains of a potential massacre from the Early Bronze Age in Turkey.
