A Sustainable Urban Archaeology Experience: The Küçükyalı ArkeoPark

Pin It       For the time being, besides my own "Chainmail By Xn" business, I am also working in an archaeological site within the city of İstanbul. This is a 9th century Byzantium structure complex and our project is called "Traces of the Past for Contemporary Creativity: Urban Archaeology and Küçükyalı ArkeoPark". Aim of the project is to integrate cultural heritage into daily city life. What's more, archaeological excavations are conducted in the area along with conservation and preservation practises and social activities for different age groups.
       It is the largest archaeological area located on the Asian side of İstanbul and was a suburb of the ancient Byzantine city.

If you want to take a closer look at the activities of Küçükyalı ArkeoPark, here are our social media accounts and pages:

Instagram: @kucukyaliarkeopark

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kucukyaliarkeopark/

Web Site: https://kyap.ku.edu.tr/

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My Real Cabinet of Curiosities

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      I sleep, I read, I draw and sometimes even eat in this very room and this is my favorite wall in it. My real cabinet of curiosities.. and if you look carefully you can also see the terrarium of "Safir" (and many more unrelated things of course:).

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Characters in My Life - Vol.2: MARSYAS

Pin It        I used to work in Istanbul Archaeological Museums and I had to leave my job before moving to Norway for a year but that museum still has a big part in my life because it has always been one of the places that I feel peaceful, magical, or just "strongly feel".
      In my very first visit there when I was a student, I wished working in such a place and fortunately it came true. Again in that first visit I met Marsyas in the ground floor, Gallery 16.
      I believe that some statues are somewhat special characters confined within marble blocks so I thought Marsyas was one of them with a soul still in him. I started to visit and talk to him from time to time and that's how he became an important character in my life.



His statue in Istanbul Archaeological Museums. Is is dated to the Hellenistic period and was found in Tarsus, a historical city in the southern part of Turkey.

       According to the story, Marsyas claims that he plays his flute better than Apollo plays his lyre. Neither of them wins in a musical contest, but Apollo asks Marsyas to turn his instrument upside down and to add his own voice. However, Marsyas cannot achieve this and Apollo wins the contest. After being challenged by a mortal, Apollo gets angry, skins Marsyas alive and hangs his skin to a pine tree, so here he is depicted as hung from a tree and his muscles stretched because of this torture. (Apollo feels sorry later and breaks his lyre and turns Marsyas into a river.) 


View of the museum. I took this picture 3 years ago, when I was working there.

(Yes:) Me in the museum garden

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X-Books

Pin It       I am a dedicated reader and books occupy very big space in my life (both metaphorically and literally because my room is filled with them :)

      Getting a new book is one of the things that make me happy. Since people around me know that, I always get books on occasions like birthdays or Christmas, etc. So if I am writing a blog to keep my personal history in a virtual cabinet, I felt that I definitely had to write about my reading habit and favorite pieces of literature.

     I am more into historical, scientific and technical books about archaeology, linguistics, botany, zoology, mythology rather than novels but as long as it is not a romance book I like reading all of them. Some classical novels are exceptional though. It is not so good but I am allergic to bestsellers also. Even if it is a good one, I try to read it after a while.

 My favorite books and authors are as follows:

* Sherlock Holmes series

* All works of Edgar Allan Poe

* Shakespeare

* Umberto Eco

* Patrick Suskind

* Mehmet Hengirmen

* Bernard Werber

* Alexandre Dumas

* Laurence Sterne

* Nikolai Gogol

* Thomas Bernhard

* All kinds of encyclopedias

* Dictionaries

* Printed ancient Ottoman documents

* Ancient Egypt culture

* Astronomy books

* Fantastic Ravenloft series

* Terry Pratchett books

* Writings of ancient philosophers

* Archaeological excavation reports

so forth and so on... (because I felt that my list will go on forever:)

 

      By the way, for a long time I have been looking for a book called "The Wasp Factory" by Iain Banks. It is not sold or printed anymore so if you know a second-hand bookseller where I can find a copy or someone willing to sell (regardless of the country), I will be very glad.  

...And Everything Has Consequences :)

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