kalkan antique: 8/1/07

Thursday, August 23, 2007

CULTURAL INTERACTIONS

In ancient ages, when the life was primitive but mankind had started to think what all these were around, who they were, and answers to similar questions, let us imagine a man to predict its dominant life synergy and intellectual activities. First of all, they had totally different modes sensually during day and night. Day, their sight ability was comparably perfect with respect to night, thus they controlled easily the territory they lived. Night was potential danger, as the sense ability of man was not as developed as many dangerous animals might have. Their night activities were limited in a controlled space, first in caves later in houses. Main activities of the day, hunting and collecting were not easy in night. Thus, resting and house activities were organized for night. Day was more than enough for daily works.

During the day, they were under the light of sun. Sun was giving life to every thing in nature. What was sun? Even they could not look at the sun, they could not see it. It was the greatest power. They feared it and had worshiped it. They were on the earth. Similarly, they were far away from understanding what the earth was. In different regions of the earth, more or less, different communities were similarly in the same struggling. They were observing the same sun and standing on the same earth. We can say that main unknowns driving man to think were identical to all of them.

Total thinking time is one of the parameters in finding the answers in societies. In ancient time, as the main activities were hunting and collecting, any community that managed the main activities in shorter times had spared their times to think and discuss. When they settled leaving the nomadic life, they gained more power to understand the events, yet the main unknowns were still to be understood. The different regions of the earth gave different degree of advantages to them, to achieve more in their daily life and prosperity subsequent to this achievement. Life style and beliefs were different then when they started to live in antique ages. Nile valley, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor were more prosperous regions when the societies had started to settled life. As a result of this, the men lived in these regions were lucky than the others, thus they reached more reasonable answers to the unknowns of the past before the others did.

As the different communities had created their own beliefs, were there interactions among them? I believe there was. In addition to wars and invasions, trading were the main channels of interactions. Invaded cultures were under influence of the invaders. If invasion was long lasted and injuries were forgotten, then cultural interaction was unavoidable. Trading was also a powerful way of interaction as it was peaceful and joyful. Let us imagine again, a world that no powerful communication was possible. The traders were availing the news from the other communities and countries as they were selling their goods. To be interesting, I believe the antique time traders were exaggerating the news to level of story, thus more success in their business since story telling was a kind of attraction for the local public. New deities, kings, queens, power of them, new arms, all were in the stories. The public had spread such information quickly among the individuals by their auricular tradition; in each step the stories had been changed.

A typical example for cultural interaction in antique time is Chimera Myth that we trace in different cultures as variances. I preferred this example as Chimera is characterized to Lycia, my favorite. Chimera is a beast of mixture of three animals: lion, goat, and serpent in Greek mythology, where this myth had been adopted from Lycians, I believe, similar to importation of main deities of ancient Greek from Lycia (then Lukka). The interaction of Greek and Lukka cultures in this example is not a complete adaptation of the myth, but a composition of different aspects from both cultures. In the myth, the Chimera was slain by Bellerophon who was Greek originated. The location of the myth, however, was Lycia. Then we need to ask what the origin of it was. Indeed, at the same times, the Hittites had a myth similar to Chimera, Illuyanka. In Sumerian history we observe it as variant, Asag and Ninurta.

One of the antique Greek myths is Lamia who was a serpent. In Greek mythology, Typhon who was slain by Zeus was the father of Chimera. No need to say it is too complicated. If we continue with more comprehensive stories, we need to mention about Shahmeran, which is perceptibly a Persian version of Chimera, meaning queen of serpents. Lycia was occupied by Persians for a long time during which Lycia adopted Persian clothing into their daily life. In one of the Roman ground mosaics found in Palymyra in Syria, Bellerophone is depicted with Persian cloths. Besides, Chimera and Shahmeran are phonetically similar. Then, who originated this Chimera myth? Sumerians, Assyrians, Hittites, Lycians, or Persians? Or Greeks, although unlikely?

I suggest the originator was Sumerians with Asag. All others are the variants of it. As Sumerians had a considerable influence on today’s major religions, more recent stories like 1001 Nights had religious traces in them. Regarding the name Chimera, the origin is Persian since Shahmeran has a meaning in Persian language, king of serpents, which was believed to live under ground, with flames from its mouth. That is why Chimera was believed by Lycians to live in depths of Olympos, today’s Cirali in Turkey, where natural gas flames still fire.

Ali Citci - August 2007

Monday, August 6, 2007

Stolen Antiquity : Xanthos

Stolen Antiquity : Xanthos

Archaeological art has always been subject to theft and smuggling at all times of the history. We see the destroyed graves everywhere, where the thieves aimed to steal valuable things buried with the deceased. It was so in the past, as well as now. Why? The answer is so simple: they are rare, they are attractive, they are beautiful, they are the traces of ancient times, they are….

But, the most important one over these facts is that they are great if they stay in the original place as the creator wished then thousands years ago. They are fantastic if they are still under the same sky of their construction years. Yet the message conveyed over thousands of years is limited, the ambiance makes you feel the life of the past if they are still in original position.

Until 19th Century, treasury search was very common among the folks in many countries of the world, as was in Turkey. Only precious metals and stones were thought as treasury, else was rubbish. Breaking the stone graves, or digging in the historical areas were not under strict control as it is now. Although stricter, the officials believe the robbery and smuggling rate has been more ascending in trend every year.

I believe, the 20th Century was a milestone in a worldwide consciousness in cultural heritage. Even a ruler, Abdulmecid Khan of Ottoman Empire had not cared when Charles Fellows asked permission to move some stones (not precious, just engraved ordinary stones!) to his country, England. The permission had been issued to this archaeologist who discovered the Lycian ancient cities and famous Xanthos. The deal was good to both of them. Abdulmecid Khan would gain admire of the English Government, while Fellows was knighted as an acknowledgement of his success in bringing the invaluable Lycian antiquity to British Museum. I believe, Abdulmecid Khan was not conscious when he stamped this firman that allowed the English guys to move a treasury to England. Its permission to do this was equal to betrayal to the past. Beyond this, I also believe that Charles Fellows and his government was so conscious what they would do if they were allowed by The Ottoman Sultan. The principal supporter of Fellows in this operation was English Government that instructed the war ship HMS Beacon under the command of Lieutenant Spratt, to be in service of Fellows in this critical operation. A Journal Written During An Excursion in Asia Minor printed in London in 1839, richen with hand sketches by George Scharf played a good role in convincing the officials. The second print was “ An Account of the Discoveries in Lycia”, the popularity of which was tremendous in London public. When introduced to public by Fellows, via a series of seminars, the saloons had been cheering him with enthusiasm. The British Government did not delay to recognize the importance of the ancient matters, as those days, the British Museum had been attracting a tremendous number of guests, thus ad ups on the revenue was not so inconsiderable. When the war ship anchored against Patara shores, the boxes were ready to load on the ship. Seventy huge boxes carried the pieces from Patara sands to ship. From their own places where they stood since the time their constructors created them, they were forced to go to a place unknown to them since ever, even to their creators.

Gouged out their eyes, the remaining items are still in Xanthos. Some conscientious persons recently put some artificial faces on the Harpies Monument to sooth it, although it had not calmed down the Lycian souls there.

Yes, the Xanthos was subjected to a semi conscious destruction in 1842 by Charles Fellows with support of his government. This is unique in known archaeology. Nowadays, many English people visit Lycia, knowing that some beautiful parts were broken with hammers, chisels, and force in the past by one of their citizens to exhibit them in his country. I ask our lovely English guests, “Is there any difference between what Charles Fellows did to invaluable parts of Xanthos and a forest man put in a box by its hunters and brought to London to exhibit to public?” Is world heritage so simple and inexpensive? Is it so abundant all over the world that you can find a Nereid Monument, a Pajava Grave, or a Harpies Monument everywhere?

I say the shame of the past should be rectified at the soonest. Since 1842, Xanthos Art serves in British Museum. The income of the museum has been partly due to Xanthos antiques that naturally belong to its original location. Since 165 years, these Xanthos beauties, forcedly in exile, caused the British Museum gain with their exhibition to public. The British Museum can easily estimate how much has been accumulated since 165 years on behalf of Xanthos. The accumulated money should be returned to Xanthos as a fund for reconstruction of this ancient Lycia city, under the control of an international well known community.

Message to Future




Message to Future

Since the ancient times, human being has been sending messages to the next generations, on purpose or without. The ancient age hieroglyphs on the monuments or cuneiform written clay tablets are messages from the past. The tablets sometimes are records about daily operations, whereas engraved on the strongest stone blocks hieroglyphs are messages for the future generations. Sometimes they give information about the person buried in the grave, sometimes a record for a historical event.

Today, we continue to keep records in mass compared with the records of the past. A compact disc is capable to pass enormous amount of information to others. Are these records strong enough to carry the information up-loaded on them to the years over millenniums? I do not think so. The ancient messages have succeeded to live our time, yet they continue to pass it for many ages. What made them to achieve to be alive over thousands of years? First, they are strong enough to stand against the natural adverse effects, second no awesome event, such as a nuclear destruction, occurred. As the man-kind has now a power that may destroy the world, from now on, nobody can assure that the future generations would receive enormous amount of information regarding their ancestors.

With the technology of today, we are able to send messages from our world to other worlds. This means, our borders are now broader. Not limited to our world only, but also other civilizations in the space that we do not know now. The technology is so far so developed that a tiny computer chip may store all the information we have received from our ancestors until now. This is an incredible improvement. The same science has been increasing the risks too, for us. Today, we may say that we are at the borders of thought, as did our ancestors years and years ago. But imagine our grand-children, or grand-grand-grand children would have a capability to live in the past with all trueness by inserting a chip to a PC controlled environment. Now imagine again that would not it be good if we could live with Lycians as if someone from their community for a period in order to understand their life? I hear you say “yes, it would”. May be we do not have a powerful tool, as our grandchildren would have, but we can inhale the same air and feel as they did, if we keep the historical heritage protected.

When you are in ancient place, I believe the following questions whirls up in your mind:

· Who were they?
· How was their daily life?
· What did they wear?
· How did they prepare their meals?
· What did they eat?

Similar many other questions go back and forth in your brain. Unfortunately, the majority of these questions have no answer. You just feel. Better these places are reconstructed, you feel better. We need to reconstruct our lovely historical places diligently as they had been worth much. As Turkey, we owe this not only to our ancestors, but also to our future.

Many of such historical areas are still without a proper protection against damaging effects. Our values may get damaged due to many reasons, such as uneducated inhabitants of a nearby village, foreign or Turkish thieves, fires; floods should be under control with proper precautions taken by authorities. Legal basis for such precautions has to be reinforced without delay, implying hurting penalties. All foreign guests should be warned legally at the entrance ports.

Further to the recent foreigner flow to west and south parts of Turkey, we have now a considerable number of foreign inhabitants in Kalkan, Fethiye, Bodrum, Didim, and Antalya. I believe, as much as we Turkish citizens do, our foreign neighborhoods have also similar responsibility to educate their own citizens visiting our country. They must not come to Turkey with misdeed, as all these remained from the past are heritage to be transferred to future best protected.

Friday, August 3, 2007



An Anatolian Community : Lycians

Were the roots of Lycians in Anatolia ? The answer of this question was not firm until recent findings, yet to be confirmed by the majority of the archeology society. Under the complicated layers of the history, and with limited information from the findings, it is rather difficult to answer the question firmly. As a usual habit, civilizations had settled on the remains of previous civilizations. Thus, successors, successors of successors, had always claimed the civilization belonged to them.

As the archeology advances with new findings and decipherment of ancient texts, we now know more. As the Hittite texts holds light on the facts of ancient Anatolia, the thick cloud over Lycia has been removed partly, yet we need more evidences. These texts riveted a fact to the pages of history: in 2000 B.C. a folk called Lukka lived in south-west Anatolia, where Lycians lived, where we live now. They called themselves Trmmi and the land Trmmili. Today we still have a village in the same area, called Dirmil, on the route as suggested by the ancient road inscription found during Patara excavations. Lycians are the successors of Lukka people, pure Anatolian according to Prof.Dr. Fahri Isık. Furthermore, he suggests Lycians were inhabitants in this area much earlier than Achaeans came there. Their language was Luwian spoken at early second millennium B.C. Their goddess Kybele was not anything else but Kubaba that survived over millenniums in Anatolia, originally Sumerians adored.

A Hittite inscription found in Yalburt near Ilgın-Konya has been deciphered recently. This inscription is actually a spring worship place constructed following the instruction Tuthaliya IV who campaigned against Lukka.

“I made vows against Patar Mountain,
Gave gifts, built steles, constructed worship places”

The statement inscribed makes us guess that Tuthaliya IV gave his instruction to construct the spring worship place on the way back his home. In Patara, Doğucaasarı is a mountain just east of Patara. The acropolis on this mountain possesses a control over the town, sea, and Xanthus valley. It can be alleged that King Tuthaliya points out Doğucasarı when it says Patar Mountain. If it is correct, Doğucasarı Acropolis extends to Bronze Age on the time scale. In this age, it is well known that mountain worship was popular. Besides, the defense wall, where today a small part remains only, is similar to the walls in Hattusa.

Found in Patara excavations, Bronze Age pottery pieces and a stone axle are some other evidences for the oldness of the Lukka country.
Similarly, Xanthos is mentioned as Awarna in Hittite texts. This fact groves hopes that the Xanthos excavations, carried out by French teams, will relieve important evidences regarding pre-iron age of Lycia.

As no findings had been discovered up to date of his early studies, relating to earlier ages than Iron Age, Prof. Dr. Akurgal suggests the period between 1200 B.C and 700 B.C to be called Dark Period. New findings have already dispersed the clouds of this suggestion by Mr. Akurgal who linked the Lycian art to Greek art. Unfortunately, such claims without firm basis had not serviced the history, but caused imperfections in the written literature, which I believe the best way is to correct the pages of history with new publications.

Lycians were habited in south-west Anatolia with their deities until the first believers arrived at their land, when christianism had spread. In middle age, Lycians settled the waves in their beliefs, adopting themselves with the serenity of their new religion to be Moslem.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Cybele of Lycia



The Goddess Kubaba

- Kubaba, Kubabaaa; where are youuuu?
- ............
- Kubaba, Kubabaaaaa
- ............
- Kubaba, where are you? I feel you; you’re here, very close to me.
- ............
- Kubaba? Kubaba?
- ............
- Kubaba, is it you?
- ............
- ............
- ............
- I feel you’re surrounding me with your shining. I feel as if I am in a big turbulence of illumination. Yes, you are here. You are glaring at me. Why, are you so angry?
- ............
- Kubaba, you stopped turning around, but glaring at me.
- What is your name, little girl?
- Yes, yes. I knew you are here. I’m Sound.
- I listen to you, Sound.
- Yesterday, when I was in Patara, I tried to find Kybele to give her a vital message. Neither Kybele was there, nor did anybody know where she was. I got the message from a graybeard who said me the majority decided on her deicide. It’s so important that I need to find her immediately. I thought you may know where she is. Can you help me, Kubaba?
- Lovely little girl. I can not. A deicide takes place in the minds of man kinds. A god or goddess may enter the mind easily, but never when these men think a deicide.
- But, but,..you are her mother. How come, you will let her be alone when she needs you so much?
- Yes, you’re right. Unfortunately, I have no further choice. Listen to me, I will tell you what happened five thousand years ago on the lands where I was born. It was a lovely land, most civilized place on the earth. Sumerian Country, Mesopotamia. My people had come to this lovely land from unknown places, very far from Mesopotamia. From north-east, where ancestors of my people had believed in Mother Nature who gave soul to lifeless stone and wood. Air and water. Bugs and birds. And men.
- Did you see Mother Nature, Kubaba?
- My lovely daughter, you see her everywhere. Look around. This flower once in a while was only a germ. A powerful packed material, but no soul. Mother Nature let everything know how to pack a power in germs. Soul to this pack can only be given by Mother Nature, when the germ falls on the earth. She so taught every living being to create the power except the soul that she gives. I do know Mother Nature is my lovely mother. She is everywhere. I see her at all times.
- Kubaba, your mother Mother Nature is everywhere, we feel her, and we love her. I feel you too as you’re the mother of our lovely Kybele. Once you were in the hearts of your people. They shaped the stone and the wood as if they could give soul to these statues. They imagined you as they feel in their hearts to remember your power at all times. But they failed to give soul to your icons because they are not god.
- Yes, my little girl. I was telling the whole story, let me continue. As you say, they felt my mother everywhere. Sometimes giving power and souls to births, sometimes horrifying with her lightening. Sometimes as rains to their crops, sometimes floods penalizing. They tried to shape wood, stone, and ivory into goodness of Mother Nature. This was only a half of my mother; it was me, resembling the good half of my mother. They called me Kubaba. Indeed I have no name, being partial Mother Nature. Nevertheless, my people loved me. After thousands of years I was known on the lands, very far away, in the country of Hattie too. Kubaba is Mother Nature indeed. Nowadays, my people changed my name to Artemis in Apas, and Kybele here. Kybele is me. I am Mother Nature.
- Kubaba, I now understand everything, thank you very much. But I need to ask this question; what did graybeard mean then saying Kybele’s deicide is decided?
- My lovely girl, that is correct. Kubaba’s deicide had taken place years and years ago. Now Kybele, later Artemis. But Mother Nature never, because Mother Nature is eternal. Kubaba, Kybele, and Artemis all are symbols only. People for ages kept their beliefs alive with their Kubaba and Kybele in order to carry Mother Nature’s goodness with them.
- I love Mother Nature.
- I love you too, my little girl.