Showing posts with label Topkapi Palace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Topkapi Palace. Show all posts

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Topkapi Palace , Part Three: Turkish Iznik Tile

Can you appreciate an empire simply
for the fabulousness of its interiors?
Turkish Iznik tile
 from the Ottoman period
is so easy to appreciate.
It was used en masse on mosques and palaces
inside and outside.
Yet each tile brings joy in its own right.
One Ottoman sultan loved tulips.
Tulips were incorporated into clothing, interiors, landscapes.
Tulips are everywhere in Turkey to this day.
So many different tile designs,
individual like snowflakes.
Then assembled into a larger pattern
like a quilt of ceramic beauty.
Below, the evil eye,
said by the Turks
to absorb the first glance of jealousy,
leaving only kinder thoughts.

Red in Iznik tile is rarer.
I am grateful to see this craft and enjoy their beauty.
 
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You may enjoy my other two posts on Topkapi Palace:
 
 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Topkapi Palace , Part Two: Harem Culture Shock

Entering the Harem
from the Courtyard of the Black Eunuchs

Visiting the Harem portion of Topkapi Palace was so darn interesting that when I finished I could have gone round again and seen it all and listened to the descriptions all over again. Why? Because visiting the Harem is unlike anything I've experienced. I had as many questions when I left the Harem as when I started. 

Keep dreaming, lady.
There's no way you're getting out of this place.
I realized later that one reason I was so intensely interested in the Harem, is the the women enslaved there were like me. When I visit a slavery exhibit in the United States, I have empathy for the slaves, but I don't identify with the slaves because they were people of color. I'm not a person of color so I see the exhibit knowing I could never have been in that position. Here, in the Harem, the slaves were white Christian women (Islam forbids the enslavement of Muslim women). They were people just like me! I'm soooo not okay with that. Here's to a future where no one of any sort is enslaved.

One of the female slaves, Roxelana, a Ukrainian Slav, grew up to marry a Sultan. She was the only concubine in hundred of years of Ottoman history who did.  The Sultan nicknamed her "Laughing Roxalena" and at her gravesight there is a sign saying something to the effect, "do not judge Roxalena by today's standards. When she lived, becoming the chief concubine to a Sultan was the most a woman could make of her life." Well I don't judge her, but I have to judge the period. White people in my country were wrong to enslave black Africans and Ottoman culture was wrong to enslave white Christian women too. Turkish people have their own reasons for judging Roxalena (which is a whole other story).
The initial entry into the Harem.
The tile is so achingly beautiful
it literally took my breath away.
Unlike most slave quarters, the physical space for the Sultan's harem was very beautiful. I am head-over-heels in love with Turkish Iznik tiles and the tile work throughout the Harem was exquisite.  So these may be some of the best-looking slave quarters built. Like all apologists for slavery, I read or heard somewhere in this exploration, "these women were probably better off than if they had just lived their normal lives wherever they were born." I don't believe it. It's still slavery, however gilded.
This ceramic tile is famous all over the world.
Turkish Iznik tiles were manufactured
at the height of the Ottoman Empire.
The audioguide explained there was a strict female heirarchy with the Harem with the Sultan's mother described not only as the most powerful lady over all of the others - it sounded like she had quite a bit of power over the Sultan as well.  Well gosh, no wonder the Empire declined! Imagine your mother-in-law having a say in running lands from Lebanon to Libya - and she didn't get out of the house much or was was even all that educated.

 I tried to think of any female heirarchies that occur naturally, and I couldn't think of any. Can you think of one? Female heirarchy seems unnatural to me.
The pebbled path was for the Sultan's horse
so he wouldn't trip as the Sultan
made his way from his Quarters
through the Harem to the outside world.
The path led to the Black Eunuch's courtyard.
The door to the Black Eunuch's dormitory.
If you don't know what an eunuch is,
you'll have to look it up in the dictionary.
Yes, they really existed. That wasn't an urban legend.

Gorgeous detailing
 over the door to the dormitory.

It's magnificent, isn't it?
Here a younger eunuch
is instructed by the Chief Eunuch,
who apparently yielded enormous power.
Topkapi Palace barely grazes the Eunuch's story.
Both their dormitory and their mosque are off-limits
to visitors.
I find their story as fascinating as the harem slaves
and wish Topkapi had shared more about the entire
Palace community, especially the Eunuchs.
I mean, it's not everyday one learn about eunuchs.


Which path should the Sultan take into the Harem?

The Eunuchs were posted around the clock
in this small antechamber
to protect the Harem women.
They used these two facing mirrors
to see down the various passageways
so they were forewarned if someone was coming.
Looking back on the Black Eunuch's courtyard.
Isn't that portico so classic and contemplative?

The path leads to the Sultan's horse mount
outside his own chambers.
This is called the Passageway of the Concubines.
Just like a solitary confinement prison, the prisoners
were not allowed interaction with the guards.
The eunuchs would leave the food for the ladies
on the counters on the left wall and then leave.

This is the Courtyard of the Concubines.
If a women bore the Sultan a son, she hit the big time
and could get a window with a view...onto this courtyard.

Imagining their plight...
what do all prisoners do, but look to the sky.

The harem has many parts that are off-limits to guests. The private quarters of the Valdin Sultan (the Sultan's mother), the Harem hammam, the Eunuch dormitory and mosque, plus the concubine's dormitories. At any one time, the Sultan had 300 concubines.  Only one of the Harem's six levels is shown to the public. Why do they charge extra to see this portion of the palace? It lessens the number of visitors. But then, maybe that's the idea.

The young women who were sold into the Harem were often sold by their parents for cash or grain. What's your opinion? Do you think they were better off as gilded Ottoman slaves?

You might enjoy my first post on Topkapi Palace:

Topkapi Palace, Part One: Would This Environment Keep You Conquering?


 
 
 


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Topkapi Palace, Part One: Would This Environment Keep You Conquering?

A passing ship on the Bosporus.
The road down to the shore is off limits to visitors.
I wonder what's down there
besides a boring parking lot
wasting prime real estate!
Locals enjoying a beautiful spot
in the First Courtyard
A gorgeous promenade in the First Courtyard.
It's easy to see everyone and everything happening
in the First Courtyard of Topkapi Palace,
which had to make it the place to
"see and be seen"
back in the days of the Ottomans.
No need to restrain your inner five-year-old.
Hop away from stone-to-stone.
Looking across the Courtyard.
Notice the majestic trees.
During the Kurban Bayram holiday last year, I decided to stay in Istanbul and play tourist for a day at Topkapi Palace. A friend had walked me through it one afternoon, but it was such a cursory walk, I realized then to do Topkapi properly, I would have to devote an entire day.

When I really want to explore something, I like to go by myself, because I don't want to have to worry about keeping another person happy while I read every sign and listen to every last audio guide explanation about a sight.

I went the day before to buy my ticket so that I would not have to wait in the discouraging long line that forms to purchase a ticket. Yea! I was first in line the next morning to enter the palace. My strategy was to immediately go get the audio guide and then enter the Haram because I wanted to see it before it swarmed with people.

An alternative strategy might be to go immediately to see the Treasury exhibits because I noticed they form maddeningly long lines during the day and more people go to those because it doesn't require an extra expense to see (the Haram does).
A water fountain in
Ottoman Baroque style.
Topkapi is situated at the corner of the Golden Horn, the Bosporus, with the Marmara Sea within viewing distance. There could not be a finer location in all of Istanbul. Even if one doesn't go into the Palace to view it, it is possible to enjoy the first courtyard outside of the Palace at no cost. It's the perfect place for a leisurely stroll where one can enjoy some of the best people-watching and nature-watching in the city.
Let's pause in awe.

An ongoing, constant conversation among everyone in Istanbul is what contributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire.  But I ask you, could you keep up the will to go out and conquer other lands if you lived in this place? Frankly, I'd be too relaxed.  It's that contemplative and beautiful.
 
You might enjoy my other two posts on Topkapi Palace:
 
 
 
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