First Military Gate at Tower 1

We spent Sunday studying military architecture with FARIT (Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey. Part of Constantinople’s defense from Byzantine times until the Turks conquered the city in 1453 depended upon 6.5 kilometers of walls that ran from the Marmara Sea to the Golden Horn. Despite invasions, earthquakes, and cuts for modern transportation, much of the walls and many of the towers and gates are still intact.

We began our day at Panorama 1453, a 360 degree painting of the siege and conquest of Constantinople, complete with sound effects and hordes of people. After that, we went to the Marble Tower on the Marmara coast where the land walls and the sea wall met. From here, we walked and occasionally bused our way north and east to the Golden Horn. Along the way, we learned about history and architecture, like why the lowest place in the wall was the most vulnerable and the difference between a military gate and a city gate and why the towers are free-standing. We were able to climb up, on, and through the wall in several places.

Gardens in the moat of the Belgrade Gate, Towers 22 - 23

Today, parks and gardens line much of the wall, creating a long and restful green space for the modern city.

I made a Google map of the trek that you can see here.

The Flickr photos are here.

You can see the painting of the siege here. There are a lot of other 3D representations on this site. It’s fun to browse through, but a bit dizzy-making.

The website Byzantium  1200 has some nice graphics of old Constantinople. The site is a bit confusing. Click on Contents in the sidebar and on the new page, you can select the buildings you want to see – for instance, Blachernae Palace or Theodosian Walls or Hagia Sophia.

If you are really into this, Wikipedia has a comprehensive article about the walls and towers here. Actually, if you are really into this, you should come for a visit!

xox

We spent last week, spring break, in southeastern Turkey. This is the Kurdish part of Turkey, but it is  close to Iran, Iraq, and Syria so it is also influenced by those cultures. When people ask me what my favorite part was, I find myself saying Urfa.

Melanippe, the Amazon Warrior Queen

Urfa, or Sanlıurfa, a medium sized city on the Euphrates side of Mesopotamia, has quite a history. It claims to be the city where both Abraham and Job were born. Each prophet has a cave and a spring or well that are the destinations of many pilgrims. The water from Job’s well is supposed to have curative powers. In the middle of the city, in the middle of a big and pleasant park is the Pool of Sacred Fish where Abraham was thrown into the fire by Nimrod. Urfa takes its religious history seriously. In 2005, the city was in the midst of clearing land on which to build a mosque, a church, and a synagogue when they uncovered a large set of Byzantine mosaic floors from an 11 room villa. The building plans have been put on hold while the mosaics are uncovered.

The old city is full of beautiful stone houses, churches, and mosques. The charming alleyways that wind their way through these buildings all seem to lead through the bazaar and to the park. Everywhere we went, the school children wanted to practice their English. “Hello. What’s your name?” Dozens of times we answered this question. Once or twice, it was put to us by a granny!

Policemen take a supper break.

Urfa is a good base camp for visiting several other sites: the oldest known temple, Göbeklitepe (c. 11000 BC), the historical city of Harran (c. 6000 BC), and Mount Nemrut with its giant stone heads. It’s easy to drive to these places and after a day of sight-seeing, you return to laid-back Urfa, eat some spicy kebab and shepherd salad, and have some tea in one of the tea gardens in the park.

Team Urfa visits Job's cave and well.

Some other great things about Urfa are head gear, traffic, and stools. First, the people, men and women, in wear purple head scarves. It’s like they are all on the same team or something.

Second, the traffic is remarkably calm. It is slow and leisurely. It is pedestrian-friendly.

The tea stools are waiting for you.

Third, everywhere you go, there are these cool little stools to perch on. I think Mike will make some this summer for our own tea garden.

Urfa was the last place we visited before returning to Gaziantep where we had began the break.  From Gaziantep, we drove a long elliptical route to Diyarbakır, Midyat, and Urfa. The only disappointment was the snow on Mount Nemrut. We tried to drive to the summit and were within 8 kilometers when we met up with the snow plow  that had cleared a one-lane path through the snow that was at least 5 feet deep. I guess that isn’t all bad, because we will return to Urfa this fall and finally get to Nemrut and the giant heads.

xox

Mike’s school will be on spring break next week, so we have a trip planned to southeastern Turkey. Here’s a link to a Google map of what we are planning.

I think most points on the map have some information about what is there.

More when we get back.

xox

This year I volunteered to tutor two members of Istanbul’s refugee and migrant community. My students are very motivated to improve their English reading and writing skills, so the work is very gratifying. In spite of the hardships they face, they are inspiring and strong women.

Gifty

Gifty is a 38-year old woman from Ghana. Her original goal was to get work in Europe. Now she thinks she might return to Ghana and start an import – export business. Her family wants her to return, but she is trying to earn enough money for her son’s university fees.  As a child, she attended school for six years, married young, and had three children. Fifteen years ago, she was in a terrible traffic accident. The woman on one side of her was killed, and the woman on the other side lost both of her legs. Gifty’s injuries kept her  in the hospital for a month. During that time, she lost her memory. After her memory returned, it became apparent that she had lost her ability to read and write. Tests determined that there was no physical cause for this, so the loss was probably due to emotional trauma. Her dream of having her own business motivates her desire to relearn to read and write.

Gifty’s story is similar to many economic migrants in Turkey. They pay money to someone who promises them ‘paper’ and work, but the paper and work never appear. They cannot get work without work permits; they cannot get work permits without paper – visas, resident permits, etc. Without work, they have no money. Without money, they cannot move on. Often, their visas expire, and there are additional fines to pay if they try to leave. In Gifty’s case, she lost her passport when her purse was stolen soon after she arrived in Istanbul. Because Ghana has no embassy in Turkey, passports are handled by the nearest embassy – in this case, Italy – and  a new  passport will cost her 300 Euro. She been able to earn small amounts of money from part-time work as a hairdresser, nanny, and housekeeper, but not enough to get a new passport or pay her son’s tuition.

Rabi

Rabi  is a 30-year old Ethiopian woman who lived most of her life in Sudan. She is an asylum seeker, meaning she has applied for refugee status with the United Nations, but has not yet received a decision. She had completed four years of school before a series of personal tragedies forced her father to flee to Sudan. The story of her arrival in Turkey is harrowing. She, too, paid money to someone who promised to get her and 63 other people to Greece. When their boat sank off the Turkish coast, they spent over 24 hours in the water before the Coast Guard found and rescued them. During those hours, many people died from cold and exhaustion, including a child and a pregnant woman. Once Rabi and her four friends reached Istanbul, they had no money, no place to live, and no food. They slept on a beach and begged for food for two weeks before they got themselves sorted out.

While in Turkey, she met and married her husband, a man from Guinea. When his visa expired, he was deported. At that time, Rabi was pregnant. Her daughter is now 8 months old.  If Rabi receives official refugee status, she will be able to resettle in another country.  She is motivated to improve her English because she wants to provide a good life for her daughter. She spent much of this winter without heat and electricity because she had no money to pay the bills. When I asked if her husband was able to send money to help with her expenses, she shrugged and said, “He is African; he has no money.”

Lately, both of these women have expressed a desire to write about their lives. Maybe the next time you hear about them, it will be in their own words.

Love to you all.

xox

Torrance County One-Room School

I have news from Mountainair that the writing is on the wall. The digital wall, that is.

In the last few weeks, several members of my writing group, the Manzano Mountain Scribes, have released some new books and stories on Amazon!

Maybe you know that one of Amazon’s services is Kindle Direct Publishing which helps authors to self-publish their books. This bypasses the normal route of agents and publishers, submissions and rejections, and just gets the stories straight into the hands of the people. There have been some sensational success stories like that of 26 year old Amanda Hocking who sold 450,000 copies of her digital books in January. More about the pros and cons of this method is discussed in this WSJ article, Vanity Press Goes Digital, but one benefit to authors is that royalties are an amazing 70% of the sale price. A benefit to Amazon Prime members is that the books are free, but even at the full price of $2.99, the books are a bargain.

Gorden and Biddie McMath are long-time Mountainair residents whose reminiscences about Torrance County have been informative and entertaining to everyone who knows them. (Biddie, by the way, has been really helpful to Mike with his wild west novel about a woman Biddie once knew.) Now Gorden and Biddie have two stories about their life in Mountainair available on Kindle.

Gorden’s Musings and More about Gorden

The Valley Is Still There

Judy Biggars, another Scribe member, has written a romance novela, Night’s Fortune which is also available from Amazon.

Ben Steinlage writes historical fiction, young adult stories, and mysteries. He has a number of books available through Amazon. Here is his author’s page with all of his published works – so far. I say “so far” because Ben is a scarily prolific writer. By the time I finish this post, he might have three more books up there on Amazon.

Meanwhile, here in Istanbul Mike is about 3/4 of the way through his novel about Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico. Well, some days he says 3/4 and other days he says 5/8. Anyway, I think he is over the half-way mark.

I’ll have a couple of poems in the upcoming Adobe Walls anthology and another in the next Malpais Review. I don’t know the publication dates yet, but I’ll let you know when I know.

The Manzano Mountain Scribes meet twice a month at Alpine Alley. Their next meeting is next Saturday, February 25, at 10:00 in case you are curious and in the neighborhood. One thing I’m wondering is how do you get an author’s signature on a digital book? Maybe a signed coffee napkin will have to do.

xox

One of the questions you guys ask is, “What do you do all day?” One answer is that I take photos. A couple of years ago, I joined the Photography Club of Istanbul. The club meets twice a month, once for a photo trek and once for a meeting. They also arrange workshops and seminars and sponsor a yearly show at a gallery in Arnavutköy.

Photo Club on Istiklal Caddesi

January’s trek was in Beyoğlu, the area of Istanbul that was once home to foreign embassies. When Ankara became the capital of Turkey, the embassies moved there, leaving behind ornate consulates and a cosmopolitan ambiance. Its main thoroughfare is Istiklal Caddesi, a mile long pedestrian street lined with shops, cafes, bars, cinemas, museums, art galleries, hotels, restaurants, churches, schools, and mosques.

One thing about a photo trek is that there are lots of photographers, usually in every shot.

Photo Clubbers line up at the trolley barn.

Photo Clubbers go to church.

Photo Clubbers examine graffiti.

Photo Clubbers explore Hazzapulo Pasaj.

Photo Clubbers document urban decay.

Another thing about Photo Club is that we are very handy if your tour group needs a group photo.

A group of happy tourists in Taksim Square.

Photos from this and other treks I’ve attended are here. The Photo Club’s Flickr page is here. I also made a Google map of our trek.

Hope you are all well and happy.

xox

Al Khazneh (The Treasury) at Petra

As you know, Mike and I went to Jordan with some friends during the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Last summer, when we began to plan the trip, friends from the Middle East told us, “Oh, Jordan. There’s only Petra. Two days is enough.” Then they began to reminisce and soon had more than a week of suggestions for us. And sure enough, we did fill up the week, and there were places we didn’t get to and places in which we could have spent more time.

It’s true that Jordan is a small country, about the size of New Jersey, and you can easily drive the length of it in a day. A day, that is, if you don’t get lost, and we were continually lost, especially in Amman. Fortunately, the Jordanian people are kind and friendly and very willing to give directions. If someone didn’t speak English, he would find someone who did. Unfortunately, directions often consisted of cryptic things like, “Street. Street. Up. Down. Street.”

One day, after trying to go south to Madaba to visit the Church of the Mosaics, we thought we had followed the directions, but when the sun came out, we discovered that we were headed north towards Syria. We turned around, asked directions again, followed them, but soon discovered we were headed east toward Iraq. Finally, we hired a taxi to lead us to the highway we needed. This was such a successful technique that we used it again and again. Below are some more of the highlights. The full set of photos, including those from the Church of the Mosaics, is here.

The Dead Sea - We did float in Dead Sea water, but at the Mövenpick Spa not at the seashore. The salt content of the sea is 30%; at the spa it was only 24%, and we bobbed around like corks.

The Oval Forum is one of the main sights in the Roman city of Jerash. We also liked the theater with its amazing acoustics and the hippodrome in which there were reenactments by costumed gladiators, legionnairs, and charioteers.

Qasr Amra, an 8th century bathhouse and hunting lodge, is famous for the frescoes that cover the interior walls.

The view of the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee from Umm Qais. This is near the place where Jesus performed the Miracle of the Swine.

Wadi Rum is famous for its fantastic rock formations, petroglyphs, and T.E. Lawrence. A desert safari in Wadi Rum includes lots of stops at tea tents.

Ajlun Castle, built to deter the Crusaders, is only one of the many castles we visited.

I hope you are off to a happy and healthy New Year!

xox

Here is the last family history installment for the year. We are traveling to Jordan between Christmas and New Year, but as always, we’ll be thinking about you. I hope to talk to all of you before we go. Have a Happy Holiday!

“What is now Tennessee was initially part of North Carolina, and later part of the Southwest Territory. Tennessee was admitted to the Union as the 16th state on June 1, 1796. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861, and the first state to be readmitted to the Union at the end of the war. Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state, and more soldiers for the Union Army than any other Southern state.” – Wikipedia

 My maternal grandmother’s grandparents lived in Wildersville, Tennessee during the American Civil War, a war that altered their lives and fortunes and shaped my grandmother’s destiny. These are her grandparents and their circumstances in 1860, the year before the war began.

Hiram Britt, 1803 – 1871

Hiram Britt was a successful farmer and businessman. In 1860, he was the father of eight children and grandfather of at least ten. His real estate was valued at $3500 and his personal estate, which included 15 slaves, at $13000. He was a trustee and founding member of the Parkers Cross Roads Male and Female Academy.

Martha Adams Britt, 1832 – 1881

In 1860, Martha Adams Britt, Hiram’s second wife, was a 28 year old mother and step-mother living in Pleasant Exchange. Her mother, Sarah, lived nearby on land that was valued at $1000, the same as her personal estate, meaning that Sarah owned no slaves. Martha and Hiram’s son, Milton, my great-grandfather, was 1 year old.

Richard Olive, 1850 – 1941

In 1860, Richard Olive was 10 years old. His mother had died 5 years before, and his father, Howell, had remarried. His father’s real estate was valued at $1800 and his personal estate, which included 4 slaves, at $6500.

Jane Williams Olive, c. 1852 – 1905

Although there is no record of  Jane Williams in 1860, she was most likely living in Tennessee by then, because her younger sister was born there in 1860.

Civil War 1861 – 1865

When Tennessee voted to secede from the Union in 1861, the vote in Henderson County was pro-Union, but anti-Union sentiment was very strong. The county was split and provided forces to both sides. Many Britts, although owning slaves, are found in rosters for the Union but not the Confederacy. Adamses are also found in Union rosters, but Martha Adams’s uncle Patrick Boyd Adams recruited for the Confederacy elsewhere in the state. Olives cannot be found on either side.

At the end of 1862, the Battle of Parker’s Cross Roads was fought on and around farms belonging to, among others, Hiram Britt and his oldest son, Caldwell Britt. Caldwell’s son, William Rayburn, wrote an account of the battle in which he remembers holding lanterns for the surgeon who was operating on the wounded men lying in the hall of their home.

(The Confederate leader in this battle, General Nathan Bedford Forrest, helped organize the first Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 and would go on to become Grand Wizard of the Empire in 1867.)

Hiram’s brother, John B. Britt, a merchant from Huntingdon in neighboring Carroll County, and three of his sons joined the Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry, a Union force. This unit was captured by Confederate forces in 1864 and marched to Alabama. John and his son, James, died in Mobile before they reached Andersonville Prison.

Meanwhile, Howell Olive seems to have not been involved in the war. In 1865, when land owners were assessed a Federal Land Tax, Hiram Britt held 506 acres; Sarah Adams, 200 acres; and Howell Olive, 181 ½ acres. That year, Howell Olive sold this land for $2000 in gold which he then used to buy 1144 acres from another farmer. Some bandits, having heard about the gold but not about the land deal, broke into his home, demanded the gold, shot things up, threatened to kill his baby daughter, and tortured Howell who finally convinced them that he no longer had the gold.

1870
In 1870, Hiram and Martha Britt, along with their children – Milton, Dora, Docia, and Adina – were living on their farm near Lexington, TN. Martha’s mother, Sarah Adams, was living with them. Hiram’s real estate was assessed at $2000 and his personal estate at $1000. Hiram would be dead within a year and his last child, Ida, would be born soon after his death.

Richard Olive, age 20, was working on the family farm along with his brothers Thomas and Miles. Howell Olive’s land was now worth $4100 and his personal estate $1175. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, Howell gave tracts of the land to his sons. Richard received 500 acres.

Jane Williams, about age 17, appeared for the first time in the census records. She and her family were living in a house neighboring the Olive family. A black man named Adam Pritchard was the head of the household which included Peggy Williams, a mulatto, and her six children who are also listed as mulatto. Adam Pritchard, Jane, and her sister Ann were all farm workers. They owned nothing of value.

1880
In 1880, Richard Olive was living in the same household with Jane Williams and their three children, Susey, Mary, and James. They were not married, because interracial marriage was against Tennessee law. Both Richard and Jane were illiterate. Peggy Williams lived next door. Eventually, Richard and Jane migrated to Illinois where they were able to marry. In the 1900 Illinois census, the whole family was listed as white.

Following Hiram’s death in 1871, Martha Adams Britt and her children moved to Carroll County where her son, Milton, would marry Josephine Barnhill. After Josephine died in 1891, Milton moved north to Morgan County, Illinois where his friend Richard Olive had a farm. Milton Britt and Richard’s daughter, Susan Ann Olive, were married on March 17, 1896, and Marie Suzanne Britt–our Grandma Ree–was born January 7, 1897.

For more reading:

• Henderson County, Tennessee: Lost Tranquility, 1861 – 1865
• History of Henderson County, Chapter 6: The Civil War
• The Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Cavalry West Tennessee Unionists In Andersonville Prison

Gencer Emiroğlu, our guide

Last Sunday, we joined another FARIT (Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey) day trip, this one to the Belgrade Forest north of Istanbul to see more parts of the waterworks that supplied Constantinople with fresh water for centuries. In addition to the history of the forest, our guide, Gencer Emiroğlu, was also knowledgeable about the forest ecosystem, particularly mushrooms. He explained that our goal was to hike to three dams, or bent, then to an abandoned village and church, finding as many mushrooms as possible along the way, and finally lunch in the afternoon at a forest restaurant. We began, as all good hikes must, with breakfast and tea. Our first stop was at the Tarihi Bilice Börekçisi in Bahçeköy where we had our choice of pastry with meat and dried currants or pastry with cheese and hot tea. Bahçeköy is also home to Istanbul University’s School of Forestry.

Plate from Miss Pardoe's The Beauties of the Bosphorus

Nearby, we got a good look at the Bahçeköy Aqueduct which carried water from the reservoirs in the Belgrade Forest to a distribution center, or taksim, in Constantinople. From here, the water was distributed to fountains in Galata and Beyoğlu. Today, Taksim Square is a busy distribution point for transportation in Istanbul.

The three dams we saw were relatively new, built in the 17- and 1800s. Today, they are classified and protected as historic monuments, and as such, no longer in use. Even if they were in use, they would not be able to meet Istanbul’s thirst for more than one day.

Topuzlu Dam in the Belgrade Forest

I wonder how many dam pictures you want. I’ll put them into a Flickr set, and if you are interested, you can click through to see them all.

Tülin examines the mushrooms.

While hiking from dam to dam, we saw plenty of mushrooms, maybe 20 different species including mushrooms that live on dead oak, mushrooms that live on dead chestnut, mushroom that live on dead beech trees, mushrooms that live in moss, and mushrooms that live in dung. We met a two villagers who were hunting mushrooms and they showed us what they had found. More photos here.

Ruins of St. George's Church in Belgrade Village

On our way to the ruins of Belgrade Village, we stopped by a massive stump and here Gencer told us some of the history of the forest, stories about the janissaries and about other people who lived and vacationed here. Among them was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador to Turkey. Lady Montagu was a letter writer who corresponded with many notables of her day including Alexander Pope. Here is an excerpt we read from a letter describing the Belgrade Forest.

TO MR POPE.

Belgrade Village, June 17. O. S.

The heats of Constantinople have driven me to this place, which perfectly answers the description of the Elysian fields. I am in the middle of a wood, consisting chiefly of fruit-trees, watered by a vast number of fountains, famous for the excellency of their water, and divided into many shady walks, upon short grass, that seems to me artificial, but, I am assured, is the pure work of nature—within view of the Black sea, from whence we perpetually enjoy the refreshment of cool breezes, that make us insensible of the heat of the summer. The village is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, who meet every night at a fountain, forty paces from my house, to sing and dance. The beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and painters.

(more here if you are interested)

For more information on the Belgrade Forest, waterworks, and mushrooms, see these sources.

• Water supply systems, reservoirs, charity and free fountains, Turkish baths
• Within this document, there is a history of the Belgrade Forest and its many uses.
• Miss Pardoe’s 1839 book, The Beauties of the Bosphorus, has nice descriptions and beautiful illustrations of old Contantinople.
• Gencer’s photographs of mushrooms with identification.

Forest denizen on her cell phone

Wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving wherever you are. Mike and I will be thinking about all of you, and I imagine we will call many of you.

xox

Cabanas at the Black Sea

Last weekend, Mike and I went on a trip with FARIT (Friends of the American Research Institute in Turkey) to see the remains of the Long Walls of Thrace, or the Anastasian Wall. This 5th century fortification stretched from the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea and was intended to protect Constantinople from invaders from the west. Very little of the wall remains and what does remain is greatly reduced in height, hidden in blackberry brambles, and overgrown with vegetation. We climbed various hills in search of the wall, but mainly we got a terrific view of the Black Sea and some lovely beaches.

Büyükgerme - The Big Stretch

After lunch, our goal was Büyükgerme, or the Big Stretch, a portion of the 5th century aqueduct that delivered water to Constantinople. On the way, we passed by several charcoal-making operations. Charcoal has a special place in our family history. My great grandfather, Ellsworth B.A. Zwoyer, held early patents for charcoal briquettes and the machinery to produce them. In fact, a Google patent search using keywords ‘Zwoyer’ and ‘fuel’ turns up dozens of patents for various parts of the process. As we drove through the smoky woods, we became curious about the beautiful conical mounds we saw and asked to stop at one of operations where men were building a charcoal mound.

Building a charcoal mound

The wood to build the mound is stacked on the circumference of the building area. Larger pieces of wood are stacked inside against a shaft that will become the flue. The wood is fitted together with great precision in order to make as tight a structure as possible. Smaller pieces make up the outside of the mound. You can see in this picture that they have a long way to go. The stick coming out the top of the mound marks the flue.

Our explainer

This man explained to us that, in addition to the flue, there are 2 vents built into the mound to help control air flow. Once the fire is lit, it will take 15 days to make the charcoal.

Isn't it beautiful?

After the mound is built, it is covered with a layer of hay and then a layer of ash. Coals are dropped into the flue, and the whole pile begins to smolder.

A new charcoal mound

Finished stacks of charcoal lie behind stacks of fresh wood.

After thanking the colliers, we boarded the bus and continued on, but very shortly, our bus became mired in mud. While our trip organizer arranged for a rescue from the colliers, the rest of us traipsed with our guide through more mud, climbed up and down more hills, forded a small stream, and eventually arrived at the aqueduct.

So even though we didn’t get to see much of the Anastasian Wall, the trip turned out to be terrific. There are a few more photos, including the mired bus, here.

Hope you are all happy and well!

xox