Turkey |
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Art/Archelogy/Culture News
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06 Oct 2011 Thu 04:13 am |
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Syriac Christians to get first church in Istanbul
Vercihan Ziflioğlu
ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News
Turkey’s Syriac Christian community has secured approval from officials for the construction of its first church. The church, planned to be constructed in the Yeşilköy neighborhood, is expected to host 17,000 Syriacs who live in Istanbul
Prominent Syriac community leader, Kenan Altınışık (C) says the construction is set to begin as soon as suitable lands for the new church building are allotted.
After years of tussling and hairsplitting, Turkey’s Syriac Christian community has secured approval from both the prime minister and the president for the construction of its first church in the Yeşilköy neighborhood on the European side of Istanbul.
“Half of our community lives in and around Yeşilköy. We rent churches for Sunday rites, but we can only start morning mass at 11:30, whereas we are supposed to finish our Sunday rites before 10:30 in accordance with our tradition,” Kenan Altınışık, a prominent Syriac community leader, told the Hürriyet Daily News via e-mail.
The church site will be allocated to the ancient community by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, while construction expenses will be paid for by the Syriacs. An official from Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, who wanted to remain anonymous, told Hürriyet Daily News that they are searching for a suitable location for the new church.
The church architecture is planned to bear traces of the Syriac’s thousands-of-years-old culture, while the construction is set to begin as soon as suitable lands are allotted.
Community representatives held a series of talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President Abdullah Gül and EU Minister Egemen Bağış regarding their problems concerning the new church, including the allocation of land for its construction, Altınışık said.
“Afterward, we also met with the head of the Istanbul Metropolitan Construction Affairs Committee upon a directive issued by the Istanbul metropolitan mayor,” he said, adding they have no communication problems.
“We presented several files to the head of the construction affairs committee and he offered a few places, but they were not suitable for us,” said Altınışık, a businessman and head of the Syriac community’s Foundation for the Church of Mother Mary, which is located in the Tarlabaşı neighborhood in central Istanbul.
The community holds the title deed to the Church of Mother Mary and the metropolitan center that houses it, Altınışık said, adding that about 17,000 Syriacs live in Istanbul with scant numbers still living in the southeast as well.
A metropolitan center acts as a higher institution for an orthodox church. Many of Turkey’s Syriacs migrated to Europe during the mid-1980s, when there was political turmoil in the southeast
Edited (9/4/2014) by tunci
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06 Oct 2011 Thu 04:17 am |
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Historic church to become museum
IZMIR - Anatolian News Agency
The historic Greek Orthodox Church Ayavukla in the western province of İzmir has been under restoration for some time. A press museum will be constructed in an outbuilding when the restoration is complete
The press museum is said to be the third biggest in Turkey after the press museums in Istanbul and Bursa. Additional outbuildings may be assigned various uses as the restoration continues. AA Photo.
A press museum will be housed in a restored outbuilding located in the western part of the garden of the Ayavukla Church, which is undergoing restorations under the direction of the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality.
The restoration work is one of many projects continuing in an area of 270 hectares between Kadifekale and Konak Square, İzmir Metropolitan Municipality officials told Anatolia news agency. The figure of Christ, which was painted over, as well as frescoes depicting St. John and angels Michael and Gabriel, were restored, and the building is now in a condition that will allow it to host social and cultural events organized by the municipality.
The press museum is said to be the third biggest in Turkey after the press museums in Istanbul and Bursa. Additional outbuildings may be assigned various uses as the restoration continues.
İzmir Journalists Association Executive Board Chairman Atilla Sertel said they had talks with Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay and added that they would receive support from the ministry after signing the long-term reservation protocol.
“Minister Günay promised us to give support for necessary regulations,” Sertel said. “There will be private objects of some journalists in the museum such as copies of the first newspapers, cameras used in the past, typewriters, telexes and printing machines. Information about the members of the İzmir Journalists Association from the past will be shown in an electronic environment in the museum. It will be a very different museum.”
Restoration work
The Greek Orthodox Ayavukla Church was built in the second half of the 19th century in the Basmane area. It was the only Greek Orthodox church to survive the fire of 1922, a major event in İzmir’s history.
The building served as the Asar-I Atika Museum under orders from Turkish republican founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1924. The museum was later relocated and the building was abandoned. It was registered as a “cultural item under preservation” and allocated to the İzmir Metropolitan Municipality by General Directorate of National Estate.
Modern methods are being applied during the restoration of the historic church. The walls and columns were painted one by one by restorers. The relief, restitution and restoration projects were coordinated by the İzmir Institute of Technology Architecture Department
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06 Oct 2011 Thu 04:24 am |
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Turk writer’s book to become a movie
ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency
Turkish writer Ayşe Kulin’s book “Sevdalinka” about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is being made into a film. AA Photo
Turkish writer Ayşe Kulin’s book “Sevdalinka” about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina is being made into a film.
Kulin is currently writing the screenplay of the novel - a project she said she has been working on for a long time - thanks to funds allocated from the Culture and Tourism Ministry.
So far, she’s met with Aida
Begic, a young female director from Bosnia and Herzegovinia, to discuss turning the book
into a movie.
The movie, she said, is about “the pain of Bosnian citizens. All the events in the book reflect the real life events.”
Kulin recently attended a Bosnian literature festival, which was organized in Sarajevo. She attended the event with İndira Küçük Sorguç, a writer from Bosnia-Herzegovinia writer.
Her other works, among them “Adı Aylin,” have been translated into Bosnian.
Kulin said her roots also come from Bosnia and Herzegovina and that she’s familiar with the people and culture. Her grandparents came to Turkey from Bosnia, she said, adding that while writing “Sevdalinka,” she felt the pain and happiness that her family experienced in their homeland. “I wrote Sevdalinka and felt the pain of all the people,” she said.
“I am a Muslim writer and I would like for Muslim women to take their part in literature and cinema,” she said.
Kulin said she believed Europeans stereotype women who wear head scarfs, believing that they can’t do anything
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06 Oct 2011 Thu 04:28 am |
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Ceylan film rakes in close to 250,000 Liras over the weekend
ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency
A still from the movie
Famed Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest film, “Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da” (Once Upon A time in Anatolia), which is up for an Oscar, grossed close to a quarter million Turkish Liras in its first weekend in cinemas.
A total of 18,573 viewers watched the film, which is competing for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, over the weekend in 78 cinemas around the country.
The movie, which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, was released nationwide on Sept. 23 and stars Muhammet Uzuner, Taner Birsel and Yılmaz Erdoğan. The movie premiered in Turkey last month at the Adana Golden Boll Festival.
Ceylan said the movie was based on a true story about a group of men who searched for a dead body in the Anatolian steppe. The film took 11 weeks to make and was filmed in Kırıkkale, he added.
An earlier work by Ceylan, “3 Maymun” (Three Monkeys), drew 127,668 in 15 weeks of release, while his “İklimler” (Seasons) drew 35,345 people in 21 weeks and “Uzak” (Distant) attracted 63,845 viewers in 21 weeks
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| 5. |
09 Oct 2011 Sun 05:53 pm |
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Reunited with other half, Heracles statute goes on display
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09 October 2011, Sunday / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,
The famous weary Heracles statue, whose upper half had been on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) since 1982 and was only recently returned to Turkey, was unveiled on Sunday as part of a new exhibit after the reunification of the two parts in Antalya
| Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay on Sunday unveiled the famous weary Heracles statue, whose upper half had been on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) since 1982 and was only recently returned to Turkey, as part of a new exhibit after the reunification of the two parts in Antalya. |
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Last month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was in the US for the United Nations General Assembly meeting, decided to bring the $1.5 million statue back to the country on the government´s plane instead of allowing it to travel on a regular flight. Erdoğan had stated, “This is a very valuable piece and it should be carried by our plane.”
The statue traveled all the way from Boston to be reunited with its bottom half, which has been waiting at the Antalya Museum in Antalya, a famous city in southern Turkey known as a favorite holiday destination for many domestic and international tourists.
The two parts of the statute were reunited by experts and went on display at the Antalya Museum following a ceremony. Speaking during the ceremony, Günay said, “Today was a special day for all people who attach importance to history and archeology.”
The lower half of the statue was found by Professor Jale İnan during excavations near Perge, Antalya, in 1980. İnan searched extensively for the upper half of the statue, a feat that took 10 years, until she was finally able to locate it in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1990 at the age of 76.
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| 6. |
13 Oct 2011 Thu 09:10 am |
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statute or statue 
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| 7. |
13 Oct 2011 Thu 11:05 am |
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statute or statue
That should be statue...you are right...
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| 8. |
29 Oct 2011 Sat 12:19 pm |
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Quake cracks dome of ancient Armenian church in Van
28 October 2011, Friday / ASLIHAN AYDIN, ANKARA
(Photo: AA)
| The 10th-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross on Akdamar (Ahtamar) Island in Lake Van has a crack in its dome because of the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that struck the province of Van on Sunday. |
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Officials said their initial observations show that there is no other serious damage to the church but they are waiting for the aftershocks to end before evaluating the whole structure of the church.
The Armenian Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross occupies a special place in medieval Armenian art and architecture. In September 2010, 95 years after religious services ended, the church was reopened as a museum and operated by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Religious service is allowed only once a year at the church.
Meanwhile, officials said that buildings belonging to charitable foundations in Van were not harmed by the quake. Among them is the 450-year-old Hüsrev Paşa Medresesi.
However, the minarets of the Hüsrev Paşa Mosque and the Kaya Çelebi Mosque have visible cracks.
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| 9. |
02 Nov 2011 Wed 12:52 am |
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Exhibition reveals ancient heritage of Sagalassos
BRUSSELS - Anatolia News Agency
Brussels’ ancient city Tongeren is hosting an exhibition from Turkey. Artifacts unearthed during the excavation in Burdur have become an ancient heritage exhibition titled ‘Sagalassos: City of Dreams’ The exhibition, which will last until June 2012, focuses on the ancient life at Sagalassos and the also the heritage of the area
The Sagalassos excavations can continue for 500 years because there are many thing to discover, according to Waelkens, the archeaologist. AA photo
Artifacts unearthed during excavations in the ancient city of Sagalassos in Turkey’s southern province of Burdur’s Ağlasun district, are on exhibition at the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren, the oldest city in Belgium.
There are 238 works in the exhibition.
The exhibition, titled “Sagalassos: City of Dreams,” will continue until June 17.
There are very valuable pieces in the exhibition, such as sculptures of Emperor Hadrian and Emperor Marcus Aurelieus.
Speaking to Anatolia News Agency, Marc Waelkens, who first started the archaeology excavation at Sagalassos in 1990, said Turkey was one of the richest countries in the world in terms of valuable archaeological heritage. Other countries cannot compete with Turkey in terms of this heritage, according to Waelkens.
Sagalassos excavation works used different disciplines and reveal every detail of the ancient world, said Waelkens. The team has gone beyond the classical archaeological excavation works and benefited from many different sciences, he said, noting that as a result it has revealed 10,000 years of heritage and people who lived there in the ancient era.
The excavations will enlighten stories about the ancient times, Waelkens said.
“We can write a film scenario from the histories that we have discovered in Sagalassos,” he said, adding that they are also ready to share all the information with everyone.
Waelkens said they did not do any DNA testing of remains to discover the era and origin of the people. “This discovery is only for revealing the relation between people,” said Waelkens, noting that they did not do any research to reveal the heritage of the people who lived at Sagalassos.
Waelkens also said: “When I was 6 I read a comic book about Troy and decided to do excavations in Turkey.”
“In 1996, I came to Turkey when I was 19 and I loved Turkey,” said Waelkens, adding that he participated in excavations in Turkey.
During the last 42 years, Waelkens said, Turkey has gone through many changes in terms of excavations and archaeology. “The only thing that did not change is the hospitality of Turkey,” he added. Waelkens also said he expected the future of Turkey in terms of archaeology will be great. “Turkey is a bridge between East and West and it will carry this to future generations,” he added. Turkey, according to Walkens, is the super power of the East Mediterranean region.
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The Sagalassos excavations can continue for 500 years because there are many thing to discover, according to Waelkens.
Speaking during the opening of the exhibition, Culture and Museum Managing Director Osman Murat Süslü said there were still 150 excavations continuing in Turkey. Süslü said they had taken measures to prevent smuggling of artifacts.
The exhibition in Brussels is an important one, as it also shows the heritage to Turkish people living in the country, said Süslü, adding that the exhibition will also contribute to the presentation of Turkey.
The exhibition was prepared by opera director Guy Joosten.
The exhibition includes scripts, sculptures, a frieze of dancing girls, oil lamps, rings, pots, women’s portraits and eye drop bottles.
Burdur has more than 25 ancient cities, and it is very important to promote the area around the world. Researchers have also uncovered traces of Ottoman settlements in Sagalassos in recent excavations. The findings have revealed that the ancient city was abandoned after the 13th century.
During the excavations near the upper part of the old Ağlasun-Isparta highway, ceramics and metal tools from the Ottoman period were found.
These findings show that a settlement existed at Sagalassos in the Ottoman period and continued until the 18th century, experts said, adding that this showed a new dimension to the ancient city
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| 10. |
02 Nov 2011 Wed 12:57 am |
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Kaş prepares for Irish films
KAŞ - Doğan News Agency
Kaş Ancient Theater. Hürriyet photo
An Irish Film Festival will be organized for the first time in the Mediterranean province of Antalya’s Kaş district between Nov. 11 and 13.
The event, the first Irish film festival in Turkey, will take place in Kaş’s Ancient Theater. Four feature-length films will be shown at the two-day festival, namely, “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” which won the 2006 Cannes Palme d’Or Award; “Once,” a contemporary love story; “In the Name of the Father,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis; as well as “Potcheen.”
The festival will further feature 13 Irish and three Turkish short films while also providing Turkish filmgoers with a chance to learn about Irish culture and history.
All films in the festival will be free of charge.
The directors of the festival, Kate Fennell and Miray Wertien, said they expected at least 2,500 people to attend the festival since it would be organized during the Kurban Bayram holiday
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