Comments for A room near the bazaar

Comment on High mass Stephansdom by Gosia

Gosia — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 19:31:59 +0000

Signatures on the first graphic: Wilder del., J. Hyrtl sculp.

Thanks to this image posted here I was able to recognize the original print that was used as a model for one of the supraportas of a Bishop Palace in Tarnów in Poland. Thank you!

Comment on Assos (Behram Kale) by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 23:34:56 +0000

At that theatre set into the hillside which would seat 4000 if I remember correctly there was a stage from which a jazz singer in our group performed. From the highest seat one could hear her perfectly. The acoustics were completely amazing. Made me wonder about how horrific the sound when Christians were being thrown to the lions or whatever similar spectacles took place in some of these outdoor theatres.

Comment on Troy by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Sat, 14 Mar 2015 23:20:38 +0000

Standing at the wall in Troy I experienced a remarkable opening into the Troy of old including the smell of the ocean…….long since retreated. There is one spot where you can stand and see the burial mound of Homer on one horizon and the burial mound of Achillies on the horizon at 90 degrees. The excavation by Schliemann was not delicate or respectful………evidence remains of why he was known as the bulldozer. Our spiritual guide stood on the wall at Troy and read from the Illiad, choking back tears.

Comment on Suleymaniye Mosque by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 03:06:39 +0000

What was the soup kitchen at the Suleymaniye Mosque is now a restaurant at which we had an evening meal. There is a 1500 year old tree there. Very rare in Turkey where the whole countryside worth of forests were long since all cut down and as a result the rivers bring silt to the oceans, harbours have disappeared and with the disappearance of the harbour the lifeline to its town also. Where there was ocean there is now long low flat lands. The silting continues.

Comment on Pamuk’s museum of consolations by petergrant

petergrant — Thu, 25 Sep 2014 19:05:43 +0000

Thank you for writing. Reviewing my review, I have to qualify two things.
First, it didn’t give nearly enough weight to Pamuk’s elaboration of Turkish family life, specifically the to us astonishing perisistence of the extended family and its social imperatives — such that in the novel, Kemal could have dinner at Fusun’s family home every night because he had a slender blood relationship with them and Fusun’s mother was sweet on him. So it may indeed have been quite normal to have dinner there for an extended period.
The same peculiarly Turkish reality hangs over Kemal’s theft of Fusun’s goods. It may well be — the family dynamic being what it is (Pamuk is fantastically specific and detailed about that) — perhaps a man could behave badly with impunity. Perhaps there is no agency of personal growth like “shaman/confessor/analyst” in Turkish society. Perhaps the prerogatives of blood relationship do not extend to intervening in opposition to a family member’s behaviour.

Comment on Pamuk’s museum of consolations by Anja Hilden

Anja Hilden — Sat, 30 Aug 2014 09:51:55 +0000

HELLO
I too were very moved reading the novel : ” The Museum of Innocence” and will absolutely visit the museum when I travel to Istanbul on my second trip there which hopefully will take place next year. I visited Istanbul 2 1/2 years ago and did not know Orhan Pamuk then. I really do now and just finished his book yesterday about Istanbul. Wonderful . Its allmost like being there yourself and make me want to read more about the strange city.
I must confess that I couldnt finish ” Snow” , but I will try again.

Greetings Anja Hilden

Comment on Bodrum by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 04:43:36 +0000

King Mausolus, Persian satrap of Caria (377-353 BCE), thought he was a big deal. So did his wife (who was also his sister) Artemisia.

After the king’s death, Artemisia commissioned the kingdom’s most prominent architects and sculptors to design and build a funerary monument to her husband-brother that would eclipse all others. And so it did.

So grand was the Mausoleum that it was numbered among the Seven Wonders of the World, and lent its name to any and every grand funerary monument built anywhere in the world during the two millennia following its construction.

Several centuries later, the fashion for mausolea caught on with the Romans, who built them along roads and at places like Hierapolis (Pamukkale), where you can see them still.

There’s not much left of the original Mausoleum.

In the early 1400s, the Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes enlarged and strengthened their Castle of St Peter. In need of cheap, ready building materials, they spied the Mausoleum close by, admired it for a time, then broke it to pieces and used the pieces in the castle’s rubble walls, or crushed the marble into lime for mortar.

By papal decree of 1409, those who worked on the castle were guaranteed a place in heaven (though not, perhaps, in the hearts of historic preservationists).
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Bodrum, Turkey

In the early 1500s, what was left of the decorative stone from the Mausoleum (not much) was used to embellish the castle.

In 1522, what remained of the stone from the Mausoleum was crushed and burnt to make lime to strengthen the castle for defense against an anticipated attack by the armies of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent.

The sad irony here is that the knights knew they would lose and have to abandon the castle (Süleyman had a b-i-g army), but chivalric honor required them to put up a good fight.

Comment on Ephesus and Selçuk by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 04:29:33 +0000

Was the Council of Ephesus the same Council that deleted books from the Bible which were mystical in nature? or at least books they did not want in such as the Gospel of Thomas and those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Comment on Ephesus and Selçuk by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 04:24:48 +0000

Wondering what the food is like in Turkey? The storks sound fascinating and also the aqueduct they were on. I guess Ephesus is where the Biblical Ephesians is rooted from. Tempted to find a Bible but will let it pass for now.

Comment on Pergamum, now Bergama by Eloise Gladders

Eloise Gladders — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 04:06:45 +0000

So interesting to see the omphalos……powerful religious symbol. Thank you for that. And gathering that accommodation is running around $130 CAD a night……a little more with breakfast. I look forward to a ride on a funicular when I go……speaks to the steepness of the climb to the Acropolis.