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My personal impression with archaeological sites around Istanbul is that architecture seems only cared for if it's from Osmanic heritage or connected to Islam.

My personal impression with archaeological sites around Istanbul is that architecture seems only cared for if it's from Osmanic heritage or connected to Islam. Anything that predates Islamic ruling is rather let to fall into disrepair. But again this just my personal impression from visiting the area and maybe there are budgetary reasons instead of religious chauvinism.

jazzyjackson 5y ago
Letting things fall into disrepair is at least a gentle iconoclasm ! Something I've wondered about art and traditions that predate Islam, is how many of those spiritual and material traditions were appropriated or assimilated into Islam and have survived for centuries by becoming mainstream. e.g. Christmas - the tree, the 3 days of the solstice relating to the resurrection, it was a long time before it became common knowledge that those "Christian" traditions pre-date Christ, right? So what ancient history is staring us in the face because we've been calling it Islamic all this time?
- tasogare 5y ago
  Very few. The meteor of Kabaa is an exception. Otherwise islamic cultures are known for destroying archeological sites (Buddha statues in Afghanistan, Palmyr) even of their own religion (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic_heritage_sites_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic...).
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    I remember when those Buddha statues were blown up by the Taliban in 2001. It was international news: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    > Otherwise islamic cultures are known for destroying archeological sites I’m not sure that this is an Islamic trait so much as a victor/oppressor behaviour. You see this in buildings throughout history, where the dominant power converts existing structures to their usage, or destroys things they don’t want. It’s how rulers seek to dominate.
- zwaps 5y ago
  Turkish culture is filled with traditions that predate Islam and have, what Turks like to call, "Shamanic" origin. The divide may even be more stark, because while they are common, they are in some way counter to fundamentalist views (which, to be fair, are not common there as they are in some Arab countries). One way to approach the topic might be to watch "The Gift" on Netflix and realize that the book was written by a woman who practices (quite successfully, too) these Shamanic ideas. Then, the context would be that these sorts of stories and myths are extremely popular in Turkey (which is why the book was a hit) and that they live - in an uneasy, unspoken relationship - side by side with Islamic teachings that are culturally from a very different origin. Another option is to look at Sufism and its capricious relationship with official, state sponsored Islam. Many Turks I know like to view themselves as heavily inspired by Sufism. Not sure if I am qualified to explicate on traditions in detail, but my feeling is your intuition holds quite true, at least in Turkey. Many little things, from reading coffee, to marriage rituals, to protection against "evil eyes" and spirits, personification of devils and angels, things that are bad luck and generally most "Islamic" things that you find are unique to Turkey compared to Arab countries - are probably things that predate Islam.
zwaps 5y ago
It's not unrealistic that there are political preferences in Turkey. However, I think that is hard to say. I certainly would not state it in the absolute. Sites that are not connected to the Ottomans, easily excavated and then visible to tourists are naturally rare in Istanbul. But many of the sites are not Ottoman in origin, and are quite central to the cities archeological portfolio. On the other hand, artifacts (like the ships they discovered during tunnel excavations) are also on display. They are just several layers under the Ottoman Istanbul so when you find them, it's not going to be a whole site you can visit. Another hint might be that if you go outside of Istanbul, there are a lot of Greek era sites (or even earlier sites) that are "the" highlight of the adjacent region or city. Assos, Ephesus, Troy, many things in Bodrum, Cappadocia and many more. Here, the problem is clearly money. Take Assos. They do what they can, and it's fully excavated. There just don't seem to be the resources to feature it in a more exciting fashion. Finally, knowing people who are Turkish archeologists, I would say they care about the entire history of the place just as any other archeologist would. In any case, I also hope there will be (and it seems at times that there is) more resources to excavate, understand and display all the historical sites found in Turkey. To be clear, I am not Turkish, but I go there often.
- Leparamour 5y ago
  Thanks for the background information. Highly appreciated.
- dr_dshiv 5y ago
  > I also hope there will be... more resources to excavate, understand and and display all the historical sites found in Turkey I completely agree. I wish there was an international scientific funding body like the NSF. It could, for instance, provide grants to fund regional archaeology. Life is not easy for scientists in countries that don't fund it. It could be such a good thing for the world.
plq 5y ago
As an Istanbul citizen, my personal impression is that there is a much more pragmatic reason. Istanbul still sees decent construction activity both downtown (where old buildings are torn down and replaced with taller ones) and in the suburbs (the city got so big that we inadvertently say "I'm going to Istanbul" when we really mean the city centre). So in theory, as the construction teams dig not only a wider area but also deeper, they should discover more and more historical artifacts, right?.. In Turkey, law says you can own the land but not any natural resources found underneath. So if word gets out that you've stumbled upon oil, stuff of archeological importance, gold etc. etc. while digging to lay foundations, your construction project is halted until the authorities decide what to do with your discovery. You may even be forced to sell your property back for its fair market value (ie. you get a decent offer but you can't refuse it -- you can just sue to get the offer increased) You probably see where this is going: The sytem as it is incentivizes any artifacts found during private construction activities to just vaporize. Tragic, but I don't know what could be done about this. Only stuff found on state-sponsored projects seem to see the light of day, and of those that do, only ones that are useful to politicians are made part of the daily government propaganda, so you don't really hear about others unless you make an effort. With this said, as a counterpoint maybe, they found a decent amount of stuff from non-Turkish / non-islamic periods during the recent boring operations for the newest subway line and they should be on display somewhere.
- mrighele 5y ago
  I think there are a couple of reasons which work one for the other. The first is the mentality of "conquest" that a part of the population (and the ruling party) share. Those people don't see byzantine-era artifacts as part of their history (unless it is a church converted to mosque). Many part of the ancient city have been left to rot and only with the latest (opposition-linked) administration some restoration work has started. The second reason is corruption: big construction companies own a good amount of the turkish media and state sponsored projects are one way for the ruling party to thanks them for a pro-government information landscape. As such the state has little interest in blocking a construction project because some artefacts were found. As a bonus, whatever is found can be sold to smugglers
- guerby 5y ago
csomar 5y ago
Another point is that most Islamic heritage are mosques. It's very hard to find a mosque not cared for (even in quite poor countries). So Muslims will turn a blind eye on most things (their house, hospital, etc...) but not their mosque. If they didn't want this heritage, they'd have already got rid of it through destruction (see Syria/Iraq); but my guess is that there isn't enough money to take care of it.
- istanbul7 5y ago
  Your view is totally wrong. There are largest hospitals, bridges, airport in Istanbul. I bet you have never been in Istanbul
  - csomar 5y ago
    I've been multiple times and these large structures are mostly vanity projects for Erdogan.
- mda 5y ago
  Eeh not really. People cares more of their houses definitely, the maintenance funding of mosques and hospitals are also entirely different. I don't think your assessment is realistic.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Letting things fall into disrepair is at least a gentle iconoclasm ! Something I've wondered about art and traditions that predate Islam, is how many of those spiritual and material traditions were appropriated or assimilated into Islam and have survived for centuries by becoming mainstream. e.g. Christmas - the tree, the 3 days of the solstice relating to the resurrection, it was a long time before it became common knowledge that those "Christian" traditions pre-date Christ, right? So what ancient history is staring us in the face because we've been calling it Islamic all this time?

tasogare 5y ago
Very few. The meteor of Kabaa is an exception. Otherwise islamic cultures are known for destroying archeological sites (Buddha statues in Afghanistan, Palmyr) even of their own religion (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic_heritage_sites_in_Saudi_Arabia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_early_Islamic...).
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  I remember when those Buddha statues were blown up by the Taliban in 2001. It was international news: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > Otherwise islamic cultures are known for destroying archeological sites I’m not sure that this is an Islamic trait so much as a victor/oppressor behaviour. You see this in buildings throughout history, where the dominant power converts existing structures to their usage, or destroys things they don’t want. It’s how rulers seek to dominate.
zwaps 5y ago
Turkish culture is filled with traditions that predate Islam and have, what Turks like to call, "Shamanic" origin. The divide may even be more stark, because while they are common, they are in some way counter to fundamentalist views (which, to be fair, are not common there as they are in some Arab countries). One way to approach the topic might be to watch "The Gift" on Netflix and realize that the book was written by a woman who practices (quite successfully, too) these Shamanic ideas. Then, the context would be that these sorts of stories and myths are extremely popular in Turkey (which is why the book was a hit) and that they live - in an uneasy, unspoken relationship - side by side with Islamic teachings that are culturally from a very different origin. Another option is to look at Sufism and its capricious relationship with official, state sponsored Islam. Many Turks I know like to view themselves as heavily inspired by Sufism. Not sure if I am qualified to explicate on traditions in detail, but my feeling is your intuition holds quite true, at least in Turkey. Many little things, from reading coffee, to marriage rituals, to protection against "evil eyes" and spirits, personification of devils and angels, things that are bad luck and generally most "Islamic" things that you find are unique to Turkey compared to Arab countries - are probably things that predate Islam.

zwaps 5y ago

It's not unrealistic that there are political preferences in Turkey. However, I think that is hard to say. I certainly would not state it in the absolute. Sites that are not connected to the Ottomans, easily excavated and then visible to tourists are naturally rare in Istanbul. But many of the sites are not Ottoman in origin, and are quite central to the cities archeological portfolio. On the other hand, artifacts (like the ships they discovered during tunnel excavations) are also on display. They are just several layers under the Ottoman Istanbul so when you find them, it's not going to be a whole site you can visit. Another hint might be that if you go outside of Istanbul, there are a lot of Greek era sites (or even earlier sites) that are "the" highlight of the adjacent region or city. Assos, Ephesus, Troy, many things in Bodrum, Cappadocia and many more. Here, the problem is clearly money. Take Assos. They do what they can, and it's fully excavated. There just don't seem to be the resources to feature it in a more exciting fashion. Finally, knowing people who are Turkish archeologists, I would say they care about the entire history of the place just as any other archeologist would. In any case, I also hope there will be (and it seems at times that there is) more resources to excavate, understand and display all the historical sites found in Turkey. To be clear, I am not Turkish, but I go there often.

Leparamour 5y ago
Thanks for the background information. Highly appreciated.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
> I also hope there will be... more resources to excavate, understand and and display all the historical sites found in Turkey I completely agree. I wish there was an international scientific funding body like the NSF. It could, for instance, provide grants to fund regional archaeology. Life is not easy for scientists in countries that don't fund it. It could be such a good thing for the world.

plq 5y ago

As an Istanbul citizen, my personal impression is that there is a much more pragmatic reason. Istanbul still sees decent construction activity both downtown (where old buildings are torn down and replaced with taller ones) and in the suburbs (the city got so big that we inadvertently say "I'm going to Istanbul" when we really mean the city centre). So in theory, as the construction teams dig not only a wider area but also deeper, they should discover more and more historical artifacts, right?.. In Turkey, law says you can own the land but not any natural resources found underneath. So if word gets out that you've stumbled upon oil, stuff of archeological importance, gold etc. etc. while digging to lay foundations, your construction project is halted until the authorities decide what to do with your discovery. You may even be forced to sell your property back for its fair market value (ie. you get a decent offer but you can't refuse it -- you can just sue to get the offer increased) You probably see where this is going: The sytem as it is incentivizes any artifacts found during private construction activities to just vaporize. Tragic, but I don't know what could be done about this. Only stuff found on state-sponsored projects seem to see the light of day, and of those that do, only ones that are useful to politicians are made part of the daily government propaganda, so you don't really hear about others unless you make an effort. With this said, as a counterpoint maybe, they found a decent amount of stuff from non-Turkish / non-islamic periods during the recent boring operations for the newest subway line and they should be on display somewhere.

mrighele 5y ago
I think there are a couple of reasons which work one for the other. The first is the mentality of "conquest" that a part of the population (and the ruling party) share. Those people don't see byzantine-era artifacts as part of their history (unless it is a church converted to mosque). Many part of the ancient city have been left to rot and only with the latest (opposition-linked) administration some restoration work has started. The second reason is corruption: big construction companies own a good amount of the turkish media and state sponsored projects are one way for the ruling party to thanks them for a pro-government information landscape. As such the state has little interest in blocking a construction project because some artefacts were found. As a bonus, whatever is found can be sold to smugglers
guerby 5y ago

csomar 5y ago

Another point is that most Islamic heritage are mosques. It's very hard to find a mosque not cared for (even in quite poor countries). So Muslims will turn a blind eye on most things (their house, hospital, etc...) but not their mosque. If they didn't want this heritage, they'd have already got rid of it through destruction (see Syria/Iraq); but my guess is that there isn't enough money to take care of it.

istanbul7 5y ago
Your view is totally wrong. There are largest hospitals, bridges, airport in Istanbul. I bet you have never been in Istanbul
- csomar 5y ago
  I've been multiple times and these large structures are mostly vanity projects for Erdogan.
mda 5y ago
Eeh not really. People cares more of their houses definitely, the maintenance funding of mosques and hospitals are also entirely different. I don't think your assessment is realistic.