| |
|
|
Central Anatolia
This region, the heartland of the country, is of a rudged, often startling beauty. It has been witness to several great cultures of the past and its importance is no less today as the cultural and political centre of modern.
Deer Statue (Çatalhöyük)
ANKARA
On a hill overlooking The Turkish capital of Ankara is the monument to the man without this land of dramatic physical contrasts would have been reduced to little more than a patch of steppeland.
General Mustafa Kemal roused a people already exhausted by the Ottoman defeat in the first World War, drove the invading forces into the sea, and won back for the Turkish their homeland. Taking the name Atatürk or "Father of the Turks" Mustafa Kemal founded the modern democratic Republic of Turkey, based on Western laws. It was Atatürk who made the strategically placed Ankara Turkey's capital, and the city is a monument to his vision of a modern Westernized state.
Looking back over his country's 10.000 year heritage of civilization, Atatürk said: "The nation is ready and resolved to advance unhalting and undaunted on the path of civilization."
Tile Handworks Vases
Even around Ankara, this path of civilization streches back a long way; to the
Hittites, a proud and warlike people who ruled an empire from the
Black Sea to Palestine in the 2nd millennium B.C., and the Phygians, a Thracian
people who dominated the Anatolian plateau in the 1st millennium B.C
The Hittite capital of Hattuşaş ( now called Boğazkalesi ) lies 202 km. to the northeast of Ankara. The craggy hill of Hattuşaş was ringed by double walls and its gates were guarded by lion statues. Close to Hattuşaş is the Hittite open-air sanctuary of Yazılıkaya, and also Gordions is the Great cut the famous Gordions knot that gave him the key ti Asia. Also at Gordion is the great earth tumulus of King Midas, famed in the legend of the Golden Touch. |
|
|
Mirroring the ancient civilizations of the land is Ankara's Museum of Anatolian Civilizations with its unique collection of Hattian sun discs and stag cult figures, Hittite reliefs and Phyrgian metalwork.
Fanning out from the foothills of the Toros Mountains is the Plain of Konya, one of the cradles of civilization. Here on the grassland in Neolithic times, the wild bull and leopar roamed, the animals that became the cult figures of Çatalhöyük, one of the world's first cities. This recently excavated site of 8000B.C., where the houses were entered from the roots lies 50km. south of Konya near Çumra.
It was not until the 12th century that the Konya Plain experienced its second cultural Renaissance, when the city became the capital of the Seljuk Turks.
Migrating from the steppes of Central Asia, the Seljuks gave Byzantines a crushing defeat in 1071 at Malazgirt, whicle opened the floodgates to the Turkish settlement of Anatolia. Under the enlightenedrule of the Sultan Alaeddin Keykubat, Seljuk culture reached its zenith in 13th century.
Seljuk art strikes a perfect balance between purity of line and intricacy of decotration, as reflected by Konya's many beautiful buildings, such as the Aleaddin Mosque, the Karatay Medresesi and the Ince Minare Medresesi. As the symbol of the shedding of earthly ties. Mevlana devised the whirling dance, accompaniedby the etherealsound of the reed flute.
This whirling dance can still be seen in December, during the Mevlana Ceremony. Mevlana lies buried in a striking green tiled türbe or mausoleum is the former seminary of the Dervish sect, which is now a museum of articles belongingsto the order.
At Akşehir, 128 km. from Konya is the birthplace of the famous Turkish humorist, Nasreddin Hoca whose jokes and tales have kept people laughing since the 13th.c century.
Nevşehir Cappadocia Peri Bacasi
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
7 |
|
9 |
|
|
|
|
14 |
15 |
 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
| 23 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
