Masses of Mosques

Before I arrived in Turkey, I already knew what a mosque was.  And now I know a little bit more about what shape and form they take, in Turkey at least. We have seen big mosques:

Blue mosque, Istanbul



Istanbul

and little mosques,

old mosques

Green Mosque, Konya

and older mosques,

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

 mosques with one dome

Kariye Mosque, Istanbul

and two domes and even one with twenty domes! 

Mosques with one minaret,


on the way to Safranbolu



Sivas

mosques with two minarets
and mosques that like to show off with a surfeit of minarets.  


Blue Mosque, Istanbul

 

There are mosques you go down into

Kayseri

and those you go up into, and some you just go in to.  

Amasya

Bursa

We have seen them decorated with plain tiles

Konya

and ornate tiles

and maybe a little bit too much tile

Painted and carved wood and carved stone

Divrigi



and stained glass

Sultanahmet

But they all have some of the same features.  For example, there is always a place out front for the washing of ones feet:

Yeni, Istanbul

Sokullu Mehmet, Istanbul

 
There is a lavish cone shaped entry point at which all shoes must be taken off:

Amasya



They all have soft wall to wall carpet inside.



Rustem Pasha, Istanbul



Kucuk Ayasofia

There are pillars and arches and vaults:



Kucuk Ayasofia

There is a stylised staircase for the Imam to preach from:


Hagia Sofia, Istanbul

Most importantly, there is the decoratted niche indicating the direction of Mecca towards whom on prays.

My favourite Turkish Meal (even though it didn't have baklava)

I have neglected to post photos of food, something that generally dominates my travel blogs.

So I present to you the lunch we had upon arrival in Konya, and which still remains my favourite meal of all the wonderful meals I had on the trip.

First up, bread as made in the local tradition, hot from the over and served with yogurt:



A plate of domas (like dolmades) which are stuffed vine leaves with meat, rice and mint.  Also flat bread spread with tomato, cheese and meat:


Almost every Turkish meal includes soup, most commonly lentil.  This was a particularly good soup, and look at the view of the Green Mosque I had while eating it!



Ahh, the main course: roast lamb. So tender it fell apart.  .


The final course was watermelon which needs no introduction so I will finish with a shot of happy faces and happy bellies

vine leaves in the market, ready to be turned into domas

A House Without Windows

As a rule, religions are a bit like spoiled only children: they don't generally play well with others.  Despite the shared tenet of "brotherhood", even factions of the same religion act like their brethern are sworn enemies.  In the Byzantine period (i.e., Roman) the early Christians went through quite a bit of ostracism.  Some no doubt converted to save their skins, but others hid.  And where better to hide than underground?

That of course required digging. A lot of digging. Probably a lifetime of digging which rather defeats the purpose.  But luckily some stumbled upon Cappadocia in central Anatolia. The sandstone was extremely soft and easy to carve out, and carve out they did.

Neighbours must have been jealous of the four storey domicile built next door.  There was a lot to consider construcing such a place.  For example, where do you put the animals?  They are not cut out for climbing through narrow tunnels or staircases.  So, put them on teh top storey,so they can get in and out easily, and don't smell up the entire place.

Come to think of it, there probably weren't any neighbours because this is not so much as house as a town, capable of holding up to 20,000 people.  The rooms and rooms underground were fascinating and I tried to figure out whether that carved out space was for a sleeping body or a large earthenware urn. There were small niches that must have held candles.  And there were other small spaces on the ground, which I thought might be convenient for holding snacks.  At that point my imagination went a little wild and I wondered where you'd put the big screen TV and the dance floor.

I doubt if the early Christains were given navigation help from a red arrow

students glum at the prospect of living without wifi

cleverly designed for something

One of the remarkable things was the deep deep vent that allowed fresh air to exchange throughout the place.  Another cunning innovation was a huge carved round of stone, and a similar sized and shaped opening at the entrance to each floor. This was so that should they need to, the occupants could roll each wheel into place, thus deterring anyone else from getting in.  I have no idea how they would be able to roll the wheels back out of place, but then that is really not my problem.

moving through this narrow passageway
I am glad I didn't have that second piece of baclava



Cappadocia as it is today - with caves still lived in



a roof and a coulpe of sattelite dishes -
that's all you need

they even carved vaults in this early church!

Cappadocia

There are a few places in many countries that don't seem to belong.  Some are even like pieces of another planet.  There is a part of Anatolia that is geologically unique.  There were (and still are although they are dorman) three volcanoes located on the edges of this region that at one time erupted frequently, belching ash, lava and basalt over and over.  Throw in a few earthquakes and allow time for erosion and you get Cappadocia.

on the way to Cappadocia

drier still

the land in its current form

erosion



more erosion





As the rock below the top layer of basalt is extremely soft, it can be easily carved. Communities took advantage of this to make their home in the rock pillars and under the ground. Today, these examples of homes, churches and whole cities abound in Cappadocia. have contributed to form the valleys and the rock formations seen today.



North America has a similar landscape.  We call them"hoodoos",but here they are known as"fairy chimneys" which is way more charming.



how tall with they go before gravity kicks in?



students exploring an alien landscape



 "fairy chimneys"

Hey, is that volcano still active?



fooled you!  It's just a perfectly located cloud

One Small Step for Womankind

See that minaret?

I climbed it.  There can't be too many Caucasian agnostic women who can say that.  Except for the other two female students who climbed the narrow circular staircase full of pigeon droppings with me.  It was a womderful view at the top, and it made me think of the centuries of imams who had climbed up to sing out the call to prayer (ezan) several times a day.  Now they sit in a small office next to a microphone, and their voice carries further thanks to technology.

At that thought I checked my watch.  At the top, we were standing right next to the microphones and any call to prayer might be the last thing my exploding eardrums would hear at all.  All was well, we were hours from the next call.

There are 6 calls each day, and the exact time of each changes from day to day and from place to place, according to longitude and latitude, surnise and sunset, and geographical relationship to Mecca.

now they post each day's call to prayer times inside the mosque

The text is the same, but each one sounds completely different depending on the callers' vocal attributes.  Some are quite talented, and there almost seems to be a contest as to who can hold the longest note, especially in places large enough to have two mosques, which is pretty well everywhere it seems. 

Call to Prayer:

Allahu Ekber Eşhedû en lâ ilâhe illallah Eşhedû enne Muhammeden resulullah Hayya ale-salah Hayya alel-felah Allahu Ekber Lâ ilahe illallah

God is Great There is no god but God Muhammed is the Prophet of God Come to prayer Come to salvation God is Great There is no god but God

Fits in an Archaeology Museum how exactly?

Safranbolu has a museum that includes archaeological exhibits.  When we hit the first room, this is what we saw:

Really????

Seriously???

Ok, this is kind of fun becuase I used to work recording and editing quarter inch tape like this back in the day when I was a Sound Engineer in London.  Then it was called reel-to-reel tape - now it's called real tape because there is no tape anymore - everything is digital.  I got rid of all my old show reels, but I still have my splicing block.  I can't quite give that up.

thin square things for preserving information now old and unusable

The students, who weren't terribly keen to explore a local museum, suddenly came alive.  "My dad used to have one of those!"  "My dad still has one of those!"  "What are those thin square things for?" etc.

One of the older students declared that he still remembers when there was no internet and the general response was "Really?  Cool!"

Eric and I looked at each other and laughed ruefully.  Then we got into it as well and identified our old computer dinosaurs too before moving on to exhibits of Ottoman furniture, old Turksih clothing and ancient coins.  But clearly the computer room was the hit of the place.  My one remaining question is: How the heck did such an exhibit get into a small town museum in Turkey?