Activities - Voyvoda Street Lectures 2008-2009

A.POLITICAL ECONOMY LECTURES

First Wednesday of each month from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
The theme is the political economy of culture and the media.

November 5, 2008 - Prof. Orhan Tekelioglu
Reality Shows and the Hybridization of Culture
While the prevalence and popularity of formatted reality shows on Turkish TV stations can be interpreted as the victory of global media, it can also be seen as an indicator of cultural "resistance" or of a rapid localization process. Approaching the subject from a theoretical point of view reveals the growing "hybridization" of audiences in terms of cultural tastes and preferences. This "hybridization" process is apparent both in the importation and adaptation phase of programs and during their mutation process.The lecture will attempt to investigate these changes in cultural tastes with examples drawn from TV reality shows

December 3, 2008 - Assoc. Prof. Asli Tunç
What Is the Role of The Media in Democracy?
In the1980s, the dominant belief was that with a free market economy there would be no need for additional social intervention and poverty would be eradicated along with other social issues. Yet a short while after, this premise became dubious as poverty attained huge dimensions the world over. In the second half of the 1990s, the current view was that instead of a welfare state a new model for "welfare administration" should be developed. The general consensus on the necessity for less state intervention continued but the stress was now on new methods for fighting poverty that gave a central role to the private sector in cooperation with the state, to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and to benevolent fundraising initiatives. The lecture will investigate the problems that arise from this new model especially in Turkey’s case.

January 7, 2009 - Prof. Sevda Alankuş Kural
Women in Media / Politics of Body Representation

The politics of representation of women and other qualitative and quantitative minorities or subordinate categories in mainstream media constitutes an important area of inquiry. The media represents all subordinate categories with female attributes; in other words, subordinate categories are either not represented at all in the media (like women) or are represented with the “attributes of women.” Within this area of inquiry, the lecture aims to reveal the power relations founded through the politics of body representation of women in popular media – an area where patriarchal discourse is making a comeback. Using various media texts as examples, Kural demonstrates the male dominance in media dicourse as well as the mis- and under-representationof women and patriarchal peddling of the female body in the media, while stressing the need for a new idiom and politics of representation for women and all other minorities.

February 4, 2009 - Assoc. Prof. Halil Nalçaoğlu
The End of Archives: the Internet and Social Memory

A standard definition for archive keeping may be “to forget intentionally in order to remember.” Modern archivists adhering to this definition take great pains to create a complex management system that enables them to locate documents bearing witness to the past. But this definition and the operations that follow are based on the dialectical interaction between two poles, existence and documentation. The first has greater magnitude than the other and there is a time interval between the two. Nowadays, the internet has radically transformed this dialectic. Considered the ultimate archive, the internet changes the interaction between the two poles of the relation thus obliterating the aforementioned dialectic. A steadily increasing number of living spaces are subjected to electronic information operations saved over the internet. In addition, instead of documenting our life ex post facto, we frequently do so while experiencing it or experience it as we document it. In theoreticizing about archive keeping, Nalçaoğlu advances four main premises: (1) because of a period we will call “information leveling,” it is becoming more and more difficult nowadays to build archives that respond to the needs of internet “user communities;” (2) the practice of documenting human experience as it is occuring is eradicating the basics of modern archive keeping; (3) the internet reproduces what it saves, this second function lessens the significance of the first; consequently (4) due to pressure from the information culture, “modern archive keeping” has entered its closing phase and the notion of archives calls for a new theoretical and ethical framework.

March 4, 2009 - Prof. Haluk Şahin
Changing Communication Technologies and Citizenship

As new communication technologies make data collection and accessibility much simpler, inquiry into the impact that radical changes in communication methods have had on society, institutions and individuals, especially over the last quarter of the 20th century, has acquired great significance. Since the age of information overload leaves citizens in most societies confused, such questions interest professional researchers, scholars and media members as well as ordinary citizens. The lecture addresses such issues as the new challenges brought by information overload to democracy, and the problems that arise in a new world that facilitates message transfer. In addition, Şahin discusses the probable questions awaiting Turkey in tomorrow’s communication world and new horizons for the Turkish people.

April 1, 2009 - Assist. Prof. Deniz Ünsal
The Museum: Between Education and Entertainment

In our media- and communication technology-saturated age where events and images rush by so fast that we are sometimes unable to keep up with change, the museum is seen as an institution that must adapt in form, content, history and purpose to the times.

For a while now, the notion that museums become ‘modern’ when they seek to provide quality public services is being debated in Turkey and the rest of the world. Public service usually means activities designed for a pleasurable museum experience in a venue where space and presentation stress interaction with the public.

Shopping is considered one of the activities that make for a livelier visit and provide the museum with funds. As cultural institutions, modern museums are expected to engage visitors with a broad range of public services such as shops offering distinctive items, cafes, educational workshops and performance spaces. As long as they maintain the balance between education and entertainment, it seems likely that museums will be able to stand up to the competition of shopping centers and the media.

To infer that the close relationship between museums, entertainment and shopping is an outcome of socio-political and economic developments that affected the entire world at the end the 20th century is defendable but only part of the picture. This tie existed to validate the modern museum’s quest for legitimacy ever since it appeared on the scene and it guides our discussion on ‘new’ museology and the educational purposes of museums.

Drawing on examples from history and contemporary society in Turkey and the world, the lecture addresses how museums position themselves between education and entertainment and the new functions they take on to achieve sustainability.

May 6, 2009 - Marcus Graf m.
Image Is Everything – Everything Is Image
About the Constructive and Destructive Functions of Media and Art in Today’s Visual Culture

Today’s world is flat like a TV screen. On it, we see blurred reflections of various realities. Uncountable bits of information form fragmented images that fail to mirror the current state of our existence. As we shift from being a textual society to becoming a visual one, we have to deal with the hegemony of images that are mainly created for the commercial interests of the capital. Visual communication and media design create illusionary reproductions of perfect worlds, in which the aesthetic of the overfill feeds the inhabitants of the land of plenty.
Nevertheless, today’s artists still observe, analyze and critize the visual culture of our heterogenous and pluralistic realities; experts from the art and culture scene still oppose the status quo and actively take part in shaping the evironment we live in. Will they have a chance? This is something to discuss...

June 3, 2009 - Prof. Hasan Bülent Kahraman
1999-2009: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics in Turkey

From the 1990s on, a new political configuration appeared in Turkey and attained concrete form with the 2002 elections. Yet it was not only a political development since cultural configurations of the same period also displayed new features. Thus, a new social source nourished both popular culture and the dynamics of the new political era. The emergence of new migrants and of politics of plurality, identity and difference whose roots can be traced back to the mid 1980s, as well as the socio-cultural demands they generated among large sections of society were among the determining factors of this period. Thus, for the first time since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, identity politics acquired crucial significance and the consequences were soon felt. The lecture will focus on the analysis and interpretation of these dynamics.

B. ISTANBUL LECTURES

Second Wednesday of each month from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Discussions on the urban transformation of Istanbul.

October 8, 2008 - Assoc. Prof. Asu Aksoy
1. The Tarlabasi Renovation Project: Global Istanbul’s New Urban Policy
The contract for the "Tarlabasi Renovation Project" – which gives a good idea about the priorities and objectives of the new urban policy in Istanbul today – was signed by the Beyoglu Municipality and its implementation initiated in 2007. Taking this project as its point of departure, the lecture discusses the new urban policy, which can be summarized as "urban regeneration," and evaluating it as one manifestation of an emergent system of local governance, examines the social consequences of this new trend.

November 12, 2008 - Prof. Semra Somersan
Resistance and Demolition in Sulukule
Sulukule is a thousand-year-old historical neighborhood situated along Istanbul’s historic Byzantine wall, between Topkapi and Edirnekapi and whose inhabitants are for the greater part Romani (or Roma) gypsies. A feature which traditionally distinguishes the Romanis living there from those living in other parts of Istanbul is that from the age of 3-4 on, the great majority are trained by their fathers or other musicians to become virtuosos at their particular instrument; this enables them later to make a living playing that instrument as they spice up Istanbul’s entertainment sector. The men play a number of instruments from percussion to lutes, drums, violin and flute while the women accompany them by singing and dancing. Yet, the Romanis in Sulukule have always led their lives on the margins. No matter how far the fame of Sulukule and of their music traveled, the state, the police, politicians and mayors never left them or their neighborhood alone. Though Sulukule had been the home of the Romani people for at least five centuries, assaults on their living space started from the 1950s on. Part of it was used in the construction of the Vatan-Millet avenues and Sulukuke retreated southwards from Topkapi to Edirnekapi. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the Romanis’ dances, music and the "oturak âlemleri" (sitting revelries) they held for Istanbulites were banned. From 2005 on, in an effort to "conform to EU standards," the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has begun implementing an urban renewal project to "renew deteriorated neighborhoods" and is tearing down the district to turn it into a touristic center.

The lecture examines Sulukule’s latest transformation and the resistance that its residents are putting up to this gentrification project.

January 14, 2009 - Burçin Altınsay.
An Attempt at Urban Preservation and Restoration in the Fener and Balat Districts: the Fener and Balat Rehabilitation Program

121 structures were singled out and renovated among the late 19th century buildings that make up the architectural texture of the Fener and Balat districts in the historical peninsula of Istanbul. Within the framework of this project, which is the first example of an urban renovation of this scale, the lecture examines the rehabilation process, bids for the project, its implementation, institutional and civil participation issues, and the solutions found.

February11, 2009 - Assist. Prof. Ayfer Bartu Candan – Assist. Prof. Biray Kolluoğlu
Relocation of Poverty during the Process of Urban Renewal

A significant part of the “urban renewal” projects undertaken in Istanbul over recent years are labeled “shanty town renewal projects” and target the urban poor. The stated aim of these projects, whose key players are the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, local municipalities and the Housing Development Administration of Turkey (TOKİ), is to find a solution to the housing problem of the city’s low-income families and offer them better living conditions.

To test these claims, the lecture takes as its starting point the Bezirganbahçe public housing development under construction within the borders of the Municipality of Küçükçekmece and discusses some of the characteristics of the relocation of the urban poor to new areas. The lecture will stress that urban renewal and public housing projects supposedly carried out to bring a solution to the housing problems of the low-income population actually create new forms of poverty by pushing the city towards a wholesale gentrification process during which the urban poor are displaced to other areas.

March 11, 2009 - Assist. Prof. Dilek Erden
Renewal in the Golden Horn and Historical Continuity

Within the context spatial, social and economic change in Istanbul, the Golden Horn has always been a focal point of interest for both governments and private entrepreneurs. A number of factors contribute to the site’s strategic relevance; its geographical location, the fact that it is a protected harbor, the traces left over from several successive historical periods, its cultural and ethnic diversity and, perhaps most of all, its position at the heart of the city and its function as a bridge between two such major historical centers as Galata and the Historic Peninsula of old Istanbul. As with the impact of global dynamics, city administrators attempt to elevate Istanbul to global city status, give the city an image makeover and create new spaces for it, a number of their projects have targeted the Golden Horn because of its historic identity and its potential for growth. The lecture will discuss how all these projects interact and what their effect is on historical continuity in the Golden horn.

April 8, 2009 - Özcan Biçer
Renewal Project in Yenikapı

The Yenikapı renewal project, which started out with the Marmaray Commuter Transit System Project, has gradually brought to light several remakable discoveries in the region. Biçer discusses the Marmaray project – managed by the General Directorate of Railways, Harbours and Airports Construction (DLH) – and its possible effects on the region, the subway network planned by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, the extensive archaeological excavations carried out on the site, the findings they have yielded and the measures required for the protection of these cultural assets.
He also examines the vision expressed in the renewal project, the work accomplished, some of the challenges faced and the extent of civic participation. Matching up the Yenikapı Project to its counterparts, he points out what makes it different and the kind of cooperation needed to ensure the continued participation of individuals and institutions interested in the project.

May 13, 2009 - Assist. Prof. Ebru Firidin Özgür
New Trends in Istanbul Housing Areas

Over the past 25 years, Turkey has undergone great social and ecomomic changes which have also had an impact on Istanbul’s housing areas. This unplanned transformation appears to have been left largely to market forces. In comparison to 25 years ago, the various housing typologies in Istanbul have experienced changes in different directions or rather, different trends have shaped new housing areas. Housing in historic areas, central areas, newly developing areas and in upgraded shanty towns are going through a process of change triggered by a number of factors in progress. When this process is considered as a whole from the standpoint of Istanbul’s development dynamics, it also brings with it a number of social, environmental and transportation issues.

June 10, 2009 - Assoc. Prof. Murat Cemal Yalçıntan
Looking at Urban Transformation and Urban Opposition from an Urban Rights Viewpoint

Urban transformation refers to a process of change affecting the factors that define a city. This process can be intentional and planned but usually develops of its own accord. More generally speaking, urban transformation means everything that concerns urban change and it is an inherent part of human history.
However, in recent years, the processes of urban transformation occurring in metropolitan cities especially are seen as spatial expressions of economic restructuring at the macro level or put differently, the restructuring of capitalist production. The mode of capital accumulation has changed and urban space has now become an important part of this process while urban transformation is one of its chief means.
At the same time, looking at the relationship between people and urban transformation from an urban rights conception and a “cities where people matter” perspective gives rise to serious concerns about the nature of the transformation. The fact that urban regeneration strategies target potential new residents rather than actual residents and that this is the only way they can only contribute to the new mode of capital accumulation makes this new version of urban transformation unacceptable. A space cannot be designed with either location or economic reasons foremost in mind, it must be rethought with individuals as the priority; at this point, the concept of urban rights materializes as the dominant component of this new ideal.
A steadily growing opposition has formed against this unacceptable form of urban transformation. It is now time for an opposition, fragmented by diverse motivations, to reconsider its discourse from an urban rights perspective.

C. CITY AND LITERATURE TALKS

Third Wednesday of each month from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Talks on cities and the writers they create.

October 22, 2008 - Selim Ileri
Recollections of Istanbul
"... I want to write about Istanbul. Without actually realizing it, I wrote about Istanbul in the stories of Dostlukların Son Günü - about the Istanbul of my childhood, a city that has disappeared, changed, lost its individuality and meaning. In fact, details are what give life to a city’s culture. I want to write unpretentiously with the sensitivity of childhood and from the perspective of childhood. It is not an easy thing to do. Books I have read come to my mind and this affects me as well! Authors who have written about Istanbul; sometimes I remember a story, sometimes just a few lines from a novel... All this brings back countless recollections. It seems I have embarked on a crazy mission: as long as I can hold a pencil in my hand, I am committed to writing about Istanbul."

* Passage from one of Selim İleri’s letters, Yıldızlar Altında İstanbul [Istanbul under the Stars], Doğan Kitap 2003.

November 19, 2008 - Hulki Aktunç
Searching for Istanbul
Üzerlik said: Go now Hulki. We cannot even feel true sadness. There isn’t a single family left on this street. There are no children’s voices here anymore. Nothing remains other than dark crowds, street vendors, stores piled up one on top of the other and overflowing into the streets, small businesses and small customers. I hung my head and left. Now, “I remember your name.”

* Hulki Aktunç, "Üzerlik Sokağı ya da ‘Sevdiğim Sokak Adları Gibi’," [Üzerlik Street or ‘Street Names I Like’.]
İstanbul Sokakları, 101 Yazardan 101 Sokak [Istanbul Streets, 101 Streets from 101 Writers], YKY 2008, page 157.

December 17, 2008 - Füruzan
Born in Istanbul
If you are an Istanbul native and you have accepted a proposal asking you to describe one street in that city, I think yours is a very hard task. Those who live in this city will no doubt have their focal points. As for mine...
Yes, as for mine...

* Füruzan, "Tomurcuk Sokak" [Tomurcuk Street], essay. İstanbul Sokakları, 101 Yazardan 101 Sokak [Istanbul Streets, 101 Streets from 101 Writers], YKY 2008, page128.

January 21, 2009 - Tahsin Yücel
The Cities inside Us

No doubt, as some writers often pointed out, because of this passion, Istanbul was already no longer the same Istanbul. But he felt that the city had vanished long before the efforts of Popeye from New York and that furthermore, after his own efforts, it would acquire more personality even as an imitation city and anyway it was not really an imitation. Once again he repeated “Let’s just get on with the other buildings,” and he couldn’t help smiling.*

* Tahsin Yücel, Gökdelen, [Skyscraper] Can Yayınları, 2006, p. 33-34.

February 18, 2009 - Mario Levi
Living in Istanbul as a Writer

The Istanbul I knew was a fairy tale...That fairy tale was my life... That fairy tale was “their” story... That tale was our story... That tale was your story... That tale was the story of those who felt like strangers in their own city. It was the story of my desire to see the waters of the Bosphorus like a mother’s womb – despite all those lives. It was the story of the fear that with just one wrong swim stroke or oar stroke, those currents would swallow you up and drag you away to an entirely different sea.*

* From Mario Levi’s preface, İstanbul Bir Masaldı [Istanbul Was a Fairy tale] Doğan Kitap, 2006, p. 20.

March 18, 2009 - Murathan Mungan
Images of Istanbul

Each one of us is an island. Each one of us in our own island, talks, calls out, tells stories and writes in order to be remembered after death, to live other lives while on earth and to reach out to others. So we live on, sometimes dropping by for rare moments on each other’s shores, sometimes getting lost and washing up on another person’s coast.*

*Murathan Mungan, Yedi Kapılı Kırk Oda, Metis Yayınları 2007, p. 116,

April 15, 2009 - Şebnem İşigüzel
In Istanbul with my Heroes

If the readers wish for a moral, if they expect one; you lose your immortality when you lose your memory. And if you land then in the Mental Ward, with your pillow and chamber pot, you are made to room not with Shakespeare or even Ayhan Işık but with guitarists and cretins.

I think this is adequate to show that happiness and love is not as simple as knowing whether it will rain or not. I lived a few days that were worth everything in this world. Now I am hanging on to those days on that child’s swing they call memory, with the same love and happiness.*

* Şebnem İşigüzel, excerpt from the short story Making Marilyn Smile

May 20, 2009 - Prof. Murat Belge
City and Literature: Opacity and Transparency

In a village, everyone knows everyone else’s business. Everyone looks like everyone else anyway. And they share the same space. In a city, space becomes private so that private lives cannot be influenced. One of the many functions of literature is to open windows in the walls that enclose private lives.

D. ARCHAEOLOGY TALKS

Fourth Wednesday of each month, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Fourth Wednesday of each month from 6:30-8:30 p.m., talks on archaeological excavations in Turkey.

November 26, 2008 - Prof. Mehmet Özdogan
Excavations at Kirklareli
The archaeological excavations that began in Kirklareli in 1993 were aimed at determining the pattern and attributes of the interaction between the Anatolian and Balkan cultures in prehistoric times. In this context, the dig at Asagi Pinar revealed the process of adaptation undergone in this region by the Anatolian people who had brought agriculture, livestock rearing, and the first organized settlements to Southeastern Europe in the period between 6400 B.C. and 4300 B.C. With the rich archaeological findings it has yielded, Asagi Pinar is recognized as the site that best reflects the Balkans in that period. The second excavation site located in Kanligeçit revealed an Anatolian colony settlement dating back to 3000 B.C. This settlement, which is contemporaneous with that of Troy, is the unique archaeological proof today that the ancient Anatolian commercial network reached as far as Thrace.

December 24, 2008 - Prof. Havva Isik
“Patara-Caput Gentis Lyciae” Excavations at “Patara Capital of Lycia” 1988-2008
Excavations in the ancient city of Patara, which the famous roman historian Livius called "caput gentis Lyciae" or the "capital of the Lycean people," began in 1988, under the direction of Prof. Fahri Işık. Though excavations of the site were particularly difficult because shifting sands and water seeping in from the sea afflicted all the monuments of the ancient city, scientifically-speaking, they resulted in a revision of Lycian history and culture. Until the archaeological digs at Patara, Lycia had been considered a cultural geography of provincial character, influenced and overshadowed by Greek and Persian cultures and had always been investigated along those lines in publications. With the excavations at Patara, the authenticity of Lycia as an inseperable part of the ancient local civilizations of Anatolia became an indisputable fact in the eyes of the scientific community. The uncovering of official and civil monuments further highlighted the historical significance of Patara, once the capital of the Lycian League, and yielded crucial information and documentation relevant not only to the city but to the whole of Lycia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Right from the start, the excavations at Patara were also the focal point of a struggle for preservation. Patara’s cultural and natural assets were always perceived as a whole and every precaution was taken to protect the site against the threat of unrestrained tourism.

In Patara, where the cultural and natural heritage will be repaired and preserved into the future, restoration work on unique structures such as the ancient parliament building, the lighthouse and the road guidance monument is about to start. At the same time, within the framework of an innnovative management plan, the goal is to develop and implement a responsible tourism policy.  

January 28, 2009 - Prof. Oktay Belli
The Most Authentic Anatolian Civilization: the Urarts

The Urartu Kingdom, whose capital was the ancient city of Tushpa (modern Van), ruled from 900 BC to 600 BC over eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus and northwestern Iran.
For 250 years, eastern Anatolia lived its golden age under Urartu rulers; the first constructed roads, rock tunnels and the ports on the shores of Lake Van are all their accomplishments. The Urartu, who were the first people to produce jewelry in eastern Anatolia, worked the mines in the region for silver, lead, copper and iron. They built dams and irrigation canals and were thus the first to initiate modern agriculture based on irrigation in eastern Anatolia. From 1987 to our day, excavations have yielded 121 dams and irrigation canals showing that this ancient kingdom rightly deserves its name of “Hydraulic Civilization.” Currently, after just some minor repairs, 12% of the irrigation system in the region is still functioning after 2800 years.

February 25, 2009 - Assoc. Prof. Aslı Özyar
An Ancient Settlement West of Cukurova: the Gözlükule Tumulus of Tarsus

An archaeological site of worldwide fame, the Gözlükule Tumulus of Tarsus was one of the first and highly publicized scientific excavations of a prehistoric settlement in Republican Turkey. The excavations, undertaken between 1930 and 40 with the support of Bryn Mawr College, were led by Hetty Goldman, one of the leading pioneer women scientists of the early 20th century – at a time when archaology was still a field of enquiry closed to women. Goldman and her team uncovered an archaeological/historical site of several thousand years revealing almost continuous habitation in the Çukurova area from the Neolithic period to our day.
More recent fieldwork initiated in 2001 by Boğaziçi University in collaboration with Bryn Mawr College along with excavations, which reopened at the site in 2007, have focused on understanding and reconstituting the sequence of changes in the settlement. Within this framework, the lecture will also assess the first finds unearthed by the new Tarsus-Gözlükule excavation.


March 25, 2009 - Prof. Nuran Şahin
Prophecy and Klaros

Klaros was one of the three great prophecy centers of antiquity. Integral parts of pagan religion, oracles were one of the functions of Apollo as the god of prophecy. Alexander the Great is said to have consulted the oracle of Apollo at Klaros before setting up the city of Smyrna. The oracular shrine and the “Prophecy Center of Apollo Klarios” were founded in the late Bronze Age by Manto, the daughter of Teiresias, a priest of Apollo, and they remained in use until the 13th century BC. Since the gift of prophecy was associated with water, the sanctuary where the shrine was erected was located near a sacred spring. Authors in antiquity and Pausanias in particular write that annual Klaria feasts were held for the god of prophecy Apollo Klarios, during which hundreds of animals were sacrificed and various offerings made at the altars of the shrine.
The excavations at Klaros began in 1904 and since 2001they are under the direction of Turkish archaeologists with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ege University, and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). The dig has uncovered two archaic sacred roads, thus far unique in the archaeological world. These roads continue southwards from the main city in the direction of ancient Notion.

April 22, 2009 - Prof. Engin Beksaç
Holy Beliefs of theThracians: Fact and Fiction

Although Thracian culture was one of the earliest in the history of the world, because its characteristics diverged from the dominant values of the world order that emerged after the 19th century, the general claim was that it had remained in the shadow of other cultures and consequently it was either overlooked or judged from the standpoint of these cultures. Thracian culture’s distinctive identity achieved recognition essentially in the second quarter of the 20th century, as a fresh perspective to facts gradually took over. Despite common aspects shared with several antique societies, the Thracians had a cultural identity that differed from the one imposed by the restrictions of classical antiquity and they possessed a unique belief system. The sacred places corresponding to their religious beliefs were also different. In fact this difference, because of its intrinsically esoteric character, deeply influenced and shaped the religious conceptions of many of their contemporaries. The sacred places and objects of the Thracians are direct reflections of their distinct belief system.

May 27, 2009 - Prof. Filiz Yenişehirlioğlu
Ottoman Archaeology

The cultural landscape of the former Ottoman Empire spread over a vast historical geography that encompasses 33 nations today. The Ottoman era, which was for a long time rejected, destroyed or not considered a legitimate field of enquiry because it belonged to a past that was too recent, is now under the investigation of researchers from a number of countries. Archaeological finds from the Ottoman centuries uncovered by excavation teams from a particular country are examined and assessed in the context of that country’s history. Ottoman archaeology is a developing field that can provide insights into a number of topics such as history, economy, material culture, military equipment, settlement and population; supply information where written documentation is inadequate and complement archival sources.