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İlber Ortaylı

Topkapı Palace was the sultan’s residence for more than 400 years and public visits were extremely restricted. Today, the whole complex is a museum and welcomes more than 2 million visitors each year. It is also now host to the office of the museum director, İlber Ortaylı.

Topkapı Palace, which Ortaylı has been in charge of since 2004, houses a great collection of private objects belonging to the sultans. “This palace is beauty without luxury, the symbol of a powerful military establishment.” Ortaylı said.

The museum enjoys the largest Muslim collection of sacred relics, brought to Istanbul after the conquest of Mamluk’s Egypt in 1517. The mantle of the Prophet, his hair and footprint along with the rod of Abraham and the swords of the first three caliphs are among the collection. But still they are perhaps not enough to strike the incredible mass of tourists that flood into the museum everyday. “It is sufficient to take a look at the superficiality with which the tourists visit the museum to understand things are not moving in the righteous direction,” Ortaylı said. Read more…

CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON

Plenty has been in the news about the Ergenekon trials lately and plenty more will be said. Let’s exit from that aspect and look briefly at the literary side  the Ergenekon epic.

We usually think of roads leading us to somewhere — for many, it is a way of escape and safety. However, some may lose their way.
Throughout the history of civilization, roadways have been crucial: Their primary purpose was military; but gradually roads were developed and became of great commercial importance. Roads connected distant provinces with the empire’s capital.

I recently came across a lovely book of photographs about Turkey’s roads, published by Eczacıbaşı. Roadways in Turkey take on all kinds of shapes and forms.

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