My Mother Likes Pop-Art, Because Pop-Art is Colorful, 1998 (Halil Alt?ndere)
day two- A character you hate
Srrie for all you people who like Turkey, but I can’t stand the guy. He just creeps me out. *shrug*
Handwoven Turkish carpets.
A photo I took on holiday that I kinda like.
Summer Holidays are Here…YAAAAY I just booked a trip to Turkey again. Istanbul it is!! 10 days in January, we hope there will be snow ;)
Hello.
Fragments of tiles I found along the ramp.
untitled by EYLUL ASLAN on Flickr.
Club Sandwich at Home (by Mutt007)
All I can say is that if violence in Syria spills over into Turkish border towns, Assad can bend over and kiss his ass goodbye.
One of the things I love about this city is that anywhere you look, there are minarets in the skyline. Makes it so much more interesting.
Must stay hotels: The House Hotel Galatasaray
I found these photos in a thrift store in Istiklal, Istanbul.
#turkey #bursa Sa?anak ya?mur dolu ortal??? sel götürdü (Taken with Instagram at Alt?parmak)
Istanbul, Turkey
Before returning to Amsterdam from Cairo, I stopped in Turkey to explore Istanbul. Spent most of the time wandering around the city, walking along the coast on the Asian side, and eating more than a lifetime’s worth of donor kebabs. And there was also the time spent in a government funded hospital for a day on an IV due to food poisoning acquired during my last day in Cairo.
My Dad and I in Kapadokya.
I know. We should be better than this. The photo couldn’t be helped.
Mrs. Tragos and I are back from a week. My Dad and Uncle came to visit us in Turkey. We took them up and down the Bosporus in Istanbul, back to our place in Ankara, and then off to Kapadokya, land of hot air balloons, fairy chimney rock formations, and, apparently Turkish viagra.
We had just pseudo-spelunked through a network of caves and tunnels that form an ancient (as in Hittite and Roman) underground city where people used to hide from invaders for months at a time. The engineering feats—rock-disk wheels that open only from the inside; fake wells that serve as air ducts; cook fires and kitchens whose fumes dissipate before being seen above ground; sewage systems; water supply systems—made modern hubris a sillier and self-indulgent thing.
More reports to follow when I have slept a bit.
The “extra” artifacts they don’t have anymore room for, or the ones still waiting to be examined and cataloged?
While ballooning in the gorgeous valleys of the Cappadocia region of Turkey, the captain pointed out a single eagle perched atop one of the areas famous Fairy Chimneys. He moved the balloon around the spire and I was able to capture this photo of the baby eagles chillaxin in the nest. What a fabulous sighting!
honey roasted turkey sandwich.
Yerebatan Sarayi Cistern, Istanbul Turkey: “Every year I go here for like an hour and just sit doing nothing, taking in all of the beautiful architecture and details each visit renders new inspiration!” -Mevesh (Designer)
Istanbooool.
(by chalchiuhtlicue on Lomography)
i really want to go to turkey.
Turkey: Backward Step for Women’s Rights - HRW:(Istanbul) - The Turkish government’s changes to the current Ministry for Women and Family is a step backward in its struggle to combat gender inequality and violence against women, Human Rights Watch said today. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an announced that the “Ministry for Women and Family” will be replaced by a “Ministry of Family and Social Policies,” ending a much-needed explicit focus on women’s rights, Human Rights Watch said.
Erdo?an made the change on June 8, 2011, four days before the June 12 general election, as part of a revised structure for the Council of Ministers. This is much more than just a name change and signals a reduced emphasis on women’s rights, and efforts to promote the rights to non-discrimination and freedom from violence will suffer, Human Rights Watch said. Rather than taking the spotlight off women’s rights, Turkey needs to take urgent steps to combat endemic violence against women, Human Rights Watch said.
“The Turkish government’s decision to scrap the Ministry for Women flies in the face of research showing major shortcomings on women’s rights and horrendous violence against women,” said Gauri van Gulik, women’s rights advocate and researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Women in Turkey need more determined action by the government, not less, to protect women’s rights in practice.”
The existing ministry’s mandate was dedicated to working on issue relating to women’s rights and the family. The new ministry, however, will deal with issues of concern relating to children, the aged, the disabled, and the families of soldiers who die during active service, as well as family and women’s rights. The existing Directorate for the Status of Women will be a department within the ministry.
A Human Rights Watch report issued in May documents brutal and long-lasting violence against women and girls in Turkey by husbands, partners, and family members, and the survivors’ struggle to get protection. A study by Turkey’s Hacettepe University has shown that about 42 percent of Turkish women experience physical or sexual violence inflicted by a relative at some point in their lives.
Turkey has improved its laws, setting out requirements for shelters for abused women and protection orders. However, gaps in the law and implementation failures by police, prosecutors, judges, and other officials make the protection system unpredictable at best, and at times downright dangerous, Human Rights Watch said.
In addition to the high rates of domestic violence in Turkey, other statistics speak to broader gender inequality in the country. In 2010, Turkey ranked 83 on the United Nations Development Programme’s global Gender Inequality Index - down six places compared with 2008. Women hold just 9 percent of seats in the national parliament, and only 27 of the country’s nearly 3,000 mayors are women.
Women are 27 percent of the paid work force. Only about 19 percent of women are engaged in income-generating work in Turkey, and in the eastern part of the country, the figure is about 10 percent. Illiteracy figures released by the government show great disparities between men and women: 3.8 million of the 4.7 million people who are illiterate are women. “Women in Turkey have a long way to go to get their rights or even to be protected from violence,” Van Gulik said. “The government needs to send a strong signal to all women that it cares and intends to protect and promote their rights.”
Istanbul.
HANDS UP IF YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu a high five at the start of their bilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi.
(Photograph by Reuters)
Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Istanbul - Turkey
princeconstantine awesome cosplay. You should follow him too, evet~ ;3
Arif Sag. Su Samsunun Evleri
…how many Turks were how high?! This is some more undeniably sweet ear goodness for your heads.
Julia Saner by Ahmet Polat
“Apart from One”
Vogue Turkey June 2011
Lesson for EU in election says Turkey’s EU Minister
http://ping.fm/9KS0T
Grilled Cheese and Turkey Ham
Meryem Erdogan of Turkey.
First place in the Women’s Under-23 race the SPAR European Cross-Country Championships in Albufeira (Portugal) on 12th December 2010.
Her time - 20:08 over 6km.
At first glance, the fox on the surface of the limestone pillar appears to be a trick of the bright sunlight. But as I move closer to the large, T-shaped megalith, I find it is carved with an improbable menagerie. A bull and a crane join the fox in an animal parade etched across the surface of the pillar, one of dozens erected by early Neolithic people at Gφbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. The press here is fond of calling the site “the Turkish Stonehenge,” but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Gφbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years
The oldest man-made place of worship yet discovered, Gφbekli Tepe is “one of the most important monuments in the world,” says Hassan Karabulut, associate curator of the nearby Urfa Museum. He and archaeologist Zerrin Ekdogan of the Turkish Ministry of Culture guide me around the site. Their enthusiasm for the ancient temple is palpable.
By the time of my visit in late summer, the excavation team lead by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute has wrapped up work for the season. But there is still plenty to see, including three excavated circles now protected by a large metal shelter. The megaliths, which may have once supported roofs, are about nine feet tall.
Gφbekli Tepe’s circles range from 30 to 100 feet in diameter and are surrounded by rectangular stone walls about six feet high. Many of the pillars are carved with elaborate animal figure reliefs. In addition to bulls, foxes, and cranes, representations of lions, ducks, scorpions, ants, spiders, and snakes appear on the pillars. Freestanding sculptures depicting the animals have also been found within the circles. During the most recent excavation season, archaeologists uncovered a statue of a human and sculptures of a vulture’s head and a boar.
As we walk around the recently excavated pillars, the site seems at once familiar and exotic. I have seen stone circles before, but none like these.
Excavations have revealed that Gφbekli Tepe was constructed in two stages. The oldest structures belong to what archaeologists call the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, which ended around 9000 B.C. Strangely enough, the later remains, which date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, or about 8000 B.C., are less elaborate. The earliest levels contain most of the T-shaped pillars and animal sculptures.
Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt downplays extravagant spiritual interpretations of Gφbekli Tepe, such as the idea, made popular in the press, that the site is the inspiration for the Biblical Garden of Eden. But he does agree that it was a sanctuary of profound significance in the Neolithic world. He sees it as a key site in understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from tribal to regional religion.
Schmidt and his colleagues estimate that at least 500 people were required to hew the 10- to 50-ton stone pillars from local quarries, move them from as far as a quarter-mile away, and erect them. How did Stone Age people achieve the level of organization necessary to do this? Hauptmann speculates that an elite class of religious leaders supervised the work and later controlled the rituals that took place at the site. If so, this would be the oldest known evidence for a priestly caste—much earlier than when social distinctions became evident at other Near Eastern sites
Before the discovery of Gφbekli Tepe, archaeologists believed that societies in the early Neolithic were organized into small bands of hunter-gatherers and that the first complex religious practices were developed by groups that had already mastered agriculture. Scholars thought that the earliest monumental architecture was possible only after agriculture provided Neolithic people with food surpluses, freeing them from a constant focus on day-to-day survival. A site of unbelievable artistry and intricate detail, Gφbekli Tepe has turned this theory on its head.
Schmidt believes the people who created these massive and enigmatic structures came from great distances. It seems certain that once pilgrims reached Gφbekli Tepe, they made animal sacrifices. Schmidt and his team have found the bones of wild animals, including gazelles, red deer, boars, goats, sheep, and oxen, plus a dozen different bird species, such as vultures and ducks, scattered around the site. Most of these animals are depicted in the sculptures and reliefs at the site.
There is still much that we don’t understand about religious practices at Gφbekli Tepe, Schmidt cautions. But broadly speaking, the animal images “probably illustrate stories of hunter-gatherer religion and beliefs,” he says, “though we don’t know at the moment.” The sculptors of Gφbekli Tepe may have simply wanted to depict the animals they saw, or perhaps create symbolic representations of the animals to use in rituals to ensure hunting success.
Schmidt has another theory about how Gφbekli Tepe became a sacred place. Though he has yet to find them, he believes that the first stone circles on the hill of the navel marked graves of important people. Hauptmann’s team discovered graves at Nevali Cori, and Schmidt is reasonably confident that burials lie somewhere in the earliest layers of Gφbekli Tepe. This leads him to suspect the pillars represent human beings and that the cult practices at this site may initially have focused on some sort of ancestor worship. The T-shaped pillars, he points out, look like human bodies with the upper part of the “T” resembling a head in profile. Once, Schmidt says, they stood on the hillside “like a meeting of stone beings.”
