Friends of the American Research Institute Turkey (FARIT)

Dr Güzin Eren

The Sardis Expedition - Recent Developments

ARIT is delighted to be able to welcome Dr Güzin Eren of the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis (“Sardis Expedition”), the third Sardis Lecture to be held at Pera House.

on Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Located about 80km inland from Izmir and occupied from the 3rd millennium BC to late Byzantium, Sardis is one of the longest continuously settled urban environments in the Ancient, Classical, and Mediaeval worlds.

Over those three millennia, Sardis fell under the control of successive peoples and dynasties including the native Lydians, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Byzantines, creating a diverse and dynamic population. Perhaps most famously, it was the capital of the Lydian Empire, the seat of King Croesus, and the place where coinage was first invented. The city was periodically rebuilt and reoccupied, with new structures reoccupying old sites, sometimes preserving the past, sometimes repurposing ancient building materials. In later times the city was one of the Seven Churches of Asia, and a center of Judaism housing the ancient world’s largest synagogue.

This rich backdrop makes Sardis a dream location for the archaeologist-detective interested in dissecting the inflections and continuities of its multiple overlain civilizations.

Since its inception in 1958, the expedition has included a multidisciplinary team studying diverse aspects of the site and its environs, from its art and architecture, to the periodic earthquakes that leveled the city, to the microscopic seeds and other evidence for the diet of ancient Lydia, to new projects to protect and display the city’s history.

This Lecture will recap some of the recent exciting finds at Sardis, and how these finds are preserved and presented to the public.

Event Details & Registration

Date: Tuesday, 25th June 2024
Time: 18:30 (arrival); 19:00 (lecture start); 20:00 (cocktail)

Venue
British Consulate-General Istanbul (Pera House)
Corner of Tarlabaşı Caddesi and Başır Fuat Sk. - Tepebaşı, Beyoğlu

RSVP: Please kindly let us know, by Friday 31st May, if you wish to join us for this event, and names of participant(s).

We will thereafter be delighted to issue you a formal personalized Consulate invitation, needed for Security at Pera House.

F/ARIT Day Trip
Gavurkalesi & Külhöyük
Saturday, 25 May, 2024
Trip leader: Thomas Zimmermann (Bilkent University)

Gavurkalesi, known as 'The Infidel's Castle', sits atop a 60-meter rocky hill in a deep valley, believed to be a site of non-Islamic construction, likely a fortification. Subject to unfortunately only very limited excavations campaigns in the 1930s and 1990s, it features a carved relief on the south face depicting figures possibly representing a mother goddess and the Weather God and his son. The hilltop, with its Cyclopean walls and underground chamber, suggests ritual or funerary significance, while evidence of Hittite and Phrygian domestic structures also indicate broader secular use.

Located 8 km from Gavurkalesi, excavations in Külhöyük have revealed settlement remains dating back to the Early Bronze Age and the Hittite period. Discoveries include a subterranean passage to the south, remnants of a defensive system in the northern section, and a large structure with thick walls believed to have served as a temple or administrative building.

Associate Professor Thomas Zimmermann teaches at Bilkent University's Department of Archaeology, with a diverse range of research interests spanning science in archaeology, early metallurgy, the rise of elites in 3rd millennium BC Asia Minor, and socio-cultural shifts in Early Holocene Upper Mesopotamia.

Saturday, 25 May, 2024

9.00 Departure: Meet at Petek Taxi Stand.
10.00 Start walking up to Gavurkale
10.30 Visit Gavurkale
12.30 Picnic lunch
14.00 Visit Külhöyük
16.30 Arrival at Petek Taxi Stand (end of services)

COST:
1350 TL per person, which covers an honorarium, transportation, lunch box, and tips. Minimum 15 people for the trip to go.

The last day for payment is May 21, 2024. A refund is not guaranteed after this date unless you find someone to take your place.

We recommend good walking/hiking shoes for the walk up the hill. To make a reservation or for more info, call 0312-427-2222 or email [email protected]

F/ARIT
Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9-12:30, 1:30-6:00
Address: Atatürk Bulvarı. 154/13 06690 Çankaya-Ankara
tel: (90) 312 427 2222
fax: (90) 312 427 4979
email: [email protected]

Lecture in conjunction with Hungarian-Turkish Cultural Year
Hungarian Architects in Early Republican Türkiye

by Gergő Máté Kovács

at ANAMED Auditorium and on ZOOM

Monday, May 20, 2024 at 6:00 pm İstanbul
image.png

In person lecture at Anamed Auditorium, İstiklal Caddesi, 181, Merkez Han, Beyoğlu

For livestreaming on ZOOM, register in advance for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcuceGrrDwpE9cfEdVFxQSYaXaFv3V3ACCl


After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Besides the alliance during WWI, active Hungarian and Ottoman-Turkish cultural and diplomatic relations also marked the 1910s. The cooperation that blossomed during the period led to unique knowledge transfer between the young Republic of Türkiye and post-war Hungary in diplomacy, education and culture, as well as in various sectors of the economy, including industry, agriculture, infrastructure development, urban development and architecture.

The activities of Hungarian architects in the Turkish Republic can be observed in several areas, including the design of buildings in the new capital, Ankara, conceptual proposals for urban planning, landscape architecture, surveys of historic buildings and built heritage conservation initiatives, participation in international design competitions, or jury membership for competitions and also in education. The presence of Hungarians is not limited to Istanbul or Ankara; Hungarian artisans have left their mark in several areas, from Boyabat to Muğla, Aydın or Milas.

The talk outlines various aspects of Hungarian-Turkish architectural cooperation during the first half of the 20th century. It provides insight into the creation of some buildings, architectural designs, and architectural research, which were carried out in Türkiye by Hungarians as well as the role of Turkish architects working in Hungary.

Gergő Máté Kovács received his PhD (2020), MSc (2013), Specialised Engineer Degree for the Preservation of Built Heritage (2018) from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and B.A. (2017) in Philology of Eastern Languages and Cultures (Turkish studies) at Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. He worked on preservation projects of Ottoman buildings in Hungary at the Budapest Program Coordination Office of the Presidency of Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and also took part in survey works of historical buildings in Hungary and Turkey. His PhD research covered Ottoman-Turkish and Hungarian architectural relations, and he participated in research projects and organisation of exhibitions on this topic in Türkiye and Hungary. He lectured at Budapest University of Technology and Economics and was a counsellor at the Gül Baba Heritage Foundation. He is the author or co-author of approximately 80 scientific publications and Member of the Public Body of Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the National Committee of ICOMOS. Major research interests include the history of architecture, especially the correspondence of Hungarian and Ottoman-Turkish architecture in the 20th century. Gergő Máté Kovács works as deputy director – cultural attaché at Liszt Institute – Hungarian Cultural Centre in Istanbul.

--
American Research Institute in Turkey
Istanbul Branch
Tomtom Mah. İstiklal Cad.
No 181 Merkez Han
Beyoğlu İstanbul

ARIT LECTURE

An Empire of Individuals; Ottoman Antioch, 1703 to 1764
by David Meza
at ANAMED Auditorium and on ZOOM
Monday, May 6, 2024 at 6:00 pm İstanbul

In person lecture at Anamed Auditorium, İstiklal Caddesi, 181, Merkez Han, Beyoğlu.

For livestreaming on ZOOM, register in advance for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/ After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

In this talk, David Meza draws from his research exploring imperial history at the local scale in the city of Antioch and the surrounding region during the eighteenth century. He will focus on the stories of several specific individuals reconstructed from archival records which demonstrate how social, economic, administrative, military, and other aspects of life under Ottoman rule were often blurred to the point of inseparability. In line with an emerging body of scholarship historicizing our understanding of empires across the early modern world, David’s work argues that active identification and engagement with a broader ‘Ottoman society’ underpinned imperial rule in and around Antioch during the eighteenth century.

David Meza is a PhD candidate at the University of California Riverside working with Prof. Fariba Zarinebaf as his advisor. Previously, he received his BA from the University of Michigan double majoring in the History and Arab, Armenian, Persian, Turkish, and Islamic studies programs and his MA from the University of Chicago Center for Middle Eastern Studies. David is currently conducting research in Istanbul as part of a 2023-2024 Fulbright U.S. Student Research Grant under the sponsorship of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT). His primary research interests center on the eastern Mediterranean provinces of the Ottoman Empire and their unique position at the crossroads of Afro-Eurasia.

Photo: (Source: Library of Congress) American Colony . Photo Department, photographer. Antioch Antakiyeh and environs.

Vine-covered street. Turkey Antioch, 1900. [Approximately to 1920] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2019695887/.

ARIT LECTURE


Ottoman Environmental History: Some Egyptian Perspectives

by

Alan Mikhail
Department of History, Yale University
Wednesday, March 27, 2024, 6:00 pm (Turkish time)

This talk suggests ways of looking at Ottoman history from an environmental lens and from the perspective of one of its largest and most lucrative provinces. In it, I will introduce the broad field of Ottoman environmental history and offer some insights from my own work.

This lecture is online. Please register:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkce-vrjsvEteNwy0uY9iLXU7HaEV8IYfw

Alan Mikhail is Professor of Ottoman and Middle Eastern History and Chair of the Department of History at Yale University. He is the author of several prize-winning books: My Egypt Archive (2022), winner of the 2023 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Society for Humanistic Anthropology, American Anthropological Association; God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World (2020), winner of the 2021 Gold Medal in World History, Independent Publisher Book Awards; and four that focus on environmental history: Under Osman's Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History (2017), winner of the 2018 M. Fuat Köprülü Book prize, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association; The Animal in Ottoman Egypt (2014); Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (2011); and a volume he edited, Water on Sand: Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa (2013).

us06web.zoom.us

ARIT-BIAA Hybrid Event: Pat Yale, 'Following Miss Bell: Travels Around Turkey in the Footsteps of Gertrude Bell.

Date & Time: February 20, 2024, 05:00 PM

Link for registration: https://biaa.ac.uk/events/following-miss-bell-travels-around-turkey-in-the-footsteps-of-gertrude-bell/

Constructing The Future By Understanding The Past: A Neolithic Symposium In Honour Of Mihriban Özbaşaran, 13 February 2024

As all archaeologists know well, while investigating with laborious effort thousands of years in the distant past, we can miss how decades pass in our own lifetimes. This one-day symposium, with leading names of the research community on the Neolithic period, will honour Mihriban Özbaşaran on the occasion of her retirement. Mihriban Özbaşaran has trained a large number of students and specialists in this short time, carried out qualified research, and made irreplaceable contributions to archaeology in Türkiye.

Prof. Dr. Mihriban Özbaşaran

During her studies in classical archaeology, she became fond of prehistory and worked as a student and field manager at the prehistoric sites of Değirmentepe and Yarımburgaz and at the early period Aşıklı Höyük excavation. After directing an excavation for the first time at Musular, she became the director of the Akarçay Tepe and, with an international team, unearthed important evidence for the first sedentary and pottery-making communities that lived along the banks of the Euphrates. In 2005, at Ian Hodder’s invitation, she led the Istanbul team at Çatalhöyük, which was the first Turkish team to institutionally contribute to the research at the site. Taking charge of the Aşıklı Höyük Research Project in 2006, she formed a new team and research questions, ensuring the formation of an archaeological generation and understanding that will leave a mark on the forthcoming decades. Mihriban Özbaşaran is also one of the founders of Türkiye’s first project on archaeological inventory documentation, the TAY Project. Özbaşaran is among the architects of the Onlineolithic project, which was created during the pandemic and focuses on the diverse nature of the Neolithic period, as well as an editor of the open-access Turkish Journal of Archaeological Sciences, which began publication 4 years ago, aiming to change archaeological understandings to reach and influence archaeology in our country.

For more information ( https://trowelblazers.com/2015/02/13/mihriban-ozbasaran/)

AMERICAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN TURKEY - ANKARA BRANCH
Atatürk Bulvarı. 154/13 06690 Cankaya-Ankara
phone: 312 427 2222 - fax: 312 456 4979
http://aritankara.org/

ARIT LECTURE

“Another Way of Seeing Things”:

The Ottoman View over Greek Lands in European Context

by Panagiotis Kontolaimos

at ANAMED Auditorium and on ZOOM

Monday, October 23, 2023 at 6:00 pm İstanbul

In person lecture at Anamed Auditorium, İstiklal Caddesi, 181, Merkez Han, Beyoğlu

For livestreaming on zoom, register in advance for this meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwkd-ipqjwuGdFZLiZSb1F1c0cyzQ8de_R7

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Traditionally the history of European landscape perception starts in the 14th century, with Petrarch and his legendary climb on Mont Ventoux (South France). This also marks the birth of a singular cultural perception of European landscape, which is usually presented as solid and exclusive, evolving through time ever since. This line of thought continues to our days. In this presentation I argue that this singular narrative neglects the variety of cultural visions over European lands that were developed by various societies across Early Modern Europe and there is a need for a more inclusive narrative. My aim is to provide such narrative on this matter by introducing the Ottoman interpretation of Greek Landscape as a paradigm of cultural variety of relevant visions. By presenting various examples of rural and urban landscapes from Greece, where Ottoman presence is still visible, I will unfold the layers of Ottoman perception of landscapes and its impact on occasional spatial planning, hoping to demonstrate the variety of landscape visions in our region.

Panagiotis Kontolaimos is a PHD holder from the National Technical University of Athens, on Ottoman Urbanism. Over the last decade he has published extensively on issues related to the urban development and form of the Ottoman City in the Balkans, during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. His interests cover fields such as History of Ottoman Architecture and Urbanism, Ottoman Culture and Ottoman Literary Traditions. His most recent post-doctoral research, conducted also at the National Technical University of Athens, focuses on the notion of Landscape in the Ottoman culture and its impact on space formation. He is currently a Lecturer of Ottoman Culture at the Athens School of Fine Arts.

Gordion and its Neighbors in the Middle Phrygian Period (800–540 BCE)" Symposium - In honor of the 100th Anniversary of Turkey

JOINT LECTURE THE AMERİCAN RESEARCH INSTİTUTE IN TURKEY AND THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN STUDIES

The Studenica Silk (ca. 1400): Object and Interpretation by Dr. Amanda Phillips Fulbright Fellow, University of Virginia, Koç University Wednesday February 15 2023 7PM Istanbul Time

Detail of the Studenica Silk (ca. 1400), showing an inscription naming the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I.

Among the treasures in the monastery of Studenica in Serbia is a large silk hanging, woven for the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389-1402). It is the earliest known Ottoman textile, and is among the earliest works of Ottoman art of any sort. Although it is very well preserved, its initial production remains mysterious, as do its trajectories in the fifteenth century and later. This talk combines an overview of the silk's historical context with a discussion of technology and material, and makes a brief foray into its later life in Studenica and elsewhere.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0ucO6ppjMpGNRcg3KasLIESqtdNW2pPTUh

This event was postponed and will be rescheduled soon.

The Byzantine Aegean: A Connecting Sea with Dr. Alkiviadis A. Ginalis, German Archaeological Institute, Istanbul. Cosponsored with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) and the Koç University Mustafa V. Koç Maritime Archaeology Research Center (KUDAR)
https://aritweb.org/events/

ARIT offers two online lectures this month!

Modernity’s Other: Nostalgia for Village Life in Turkey - March 15, 2022, 7 pm Istanbul (UTC+3)

Please register in advance at: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvcuurpjwjGNNcYN2NFHf9qEk_9lGhMdDg

Lecture by Professor Robert Ousterhout, (Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania) -- The Architecture of the Caucasus in the Global Middle Ages

Co-sponsored by Bilkent University Department of Archaeology and ARIT

Sunday, February 20, 2022 at 6:00 PM

The stunning architecture of the medieval Caucasus is normally discussed in isolation, often limited by current national boundaries between eastern Turkey, Georgia, and Armenia.

This talk attempts to view the architectural developments of the region more broadly, looking at critical moments in its history and how the monuments might be situated within a global perspective for the Middle Ages.

For registration please send a message to:
[email protected]

Friends of the American Research Institute Turkey (FARIT) updated their address.

ARIT Lecture on Zoom - Thu. June 10, 2021 at 7:00 p.m.

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtce-trz8tG9Qe8xg-d6Qv5txG7g2ogFJ7

FARIT BOOK TALK on May 24, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. İstanbul time
THE JOURNEY TO ÇATALHÖYÜK by James and Arlette Mellaart

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEudOqoqT4pH9O0W8q16TbJLDcBM_fZaLXX

The book is available on :

https://www.zerobooksonline.com/tr/james-mellaart-the-journey-to-catalhoyuk_11_64105.html