Turkey Archives - Page 62 of 66

Wednesday Roundup

The “crown” of Damascus Gate in Jerusalem has been restored, reports the Israel Antiquities Authority. Leen Ritmeyer posts additional photos and an illustration.

Following a report about illegal construction at Gibeah of Saul (Tell el-Ful), officials have removed a fence installed at the site by the Waqf. Arutz-7 has photos.

The proposed re-identification of Tell el-Ful as Parah/Parathon by Israel Finkelstein is critiqued by G. M. Grena and found wanting.

Aren Maeir notes a new page of photos by the Israel Antiquities Authority showing some ancient games and game pieces discovered in Israel.

Renovations on the Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor, recently reported to be completed in time for an October inauguration, have ground to a halted.

To judge from Turkey’s recent efforts to pillage museums around the world, one would not guess that their warehouses contain more than 25,000 items waiting to be catalogued and put on display in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

You can now visit the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad in Google Street Views. Impressive!

Justin Taylor quotes from R. T. France’s commentary on Matthew seven differences between Galilee
and Judea in the time of Jesus: racial, geographic, political, economic, cultural, linguistic, and religious.

Many like Amazon for its quick shipping, but James Spinti of Eisenbrauns points to a bizarre exception (and he includes a screenshot).

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Egypt, Jerusalem, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Turkey Revoking Foreign Excavation Licenses

From Hurriyet Daily News:

When German archaeologist-businessmen Heinrich Schilemann stumbled upon the ancient city of Troy in today’s province of Çanakkale nearly 150 years ago, initiating the first archaeological excavation in Turkey, he could scarcely have thought other non-Turkish colleagues would one day be prevented from digging in the country’s soil.
Although many of Turkey’s myriad archaeological sites – such as Ephesus, Antioch, Troy, Knidos, Alacahöyük and Hattuşa – were initially found and dug by foreign archaeologists, recent announcements from Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry suggest this will soon change. The recent cancellation of several licenses for important digs that had been run by foreign scientists for decades, has precipitated a new debate on how to evaluate archaeological studies.
“Some of the foreign-run excavations are going well, but some groups only come here, work for 15 days and leave,” Culture and Tourism Minister Ertuğrul Günay said regarding the reason for the canceled licenses. “We are not going to allow that. If they don’t work on it, they should hand it over.”
Among this year’s canceled licenses are Xanthos, Letoon and Aizonai in the provinces of Antalya, Muğla and Kütahya, respectively. The excavations had been conducted by French and German teams for many decades.
“What I am told is that there hasn’t been enough study in the area in recent years, that’s why the excavation was handed over to us,” Burhan Varkıvanç, the new head of the excavation team in Xanthos told the Hürriyet Daily News.

The story continues here.

HT: Joseph Lauer

Tagged Excavations, Turkey

Wednesday Roundup

Concerning yesterday’s ceremony inaugurating the “Water Gate” in Jerusalem, Leen Ritmeyer responds to my question of whether any archaeologist believes Eilat Mazar with a careful, well-illustrated presentation of his conclusions. Ritmeyer was actually the one to suggest to Mazar in the 1980s that the structure may be a gate, but instead of investigating the possibility, she called a press conference to announce the discovery!

Arutz-7 has a two-minute video tour of the newly opened Ophel City Wall site. Ferrell Jenkins posts more photographs.

In his latest Asia Minor Report (posted online by Leen Ritmeyer), Mark Wilson provides a link of free online books of early explorers in Turkey. The archive has lists of similar works for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Greece, and Italy.

Wilson also points to a website with panoramic photos of sites in north central Turkey.

FRIGKÜM’s website features three-dimensional panoramic photos of the various Phrygian sites (n.b. the labels are in Turkish). The pictures were taken in 160 locations throughout the three provinces as part of the Phrygian Valley 360 Degree Virtual Tour Photography Project. The photography is breathtaking so check it out. The apostle Paul probably saw some of these amazing monuments when he traveled through Phrygia on his second journey (Acts 16:6).

In regular features at the Jerusalem Post, Danny Herman takes viewers on a four-minute video tour of the Western Wall Tunnels, Yehoshua Halevi explains how he takes nature photographs in Israel, and Wayne Stiles considers whether archaeologists are really excavating New Testament Bethsaida.

Newly excavated parts of the underground Crusader city of Acco (Acre) are now being opened to the public.

Templars Tunnel in Acco

Tagged Discoveries, Jerusalem, Resources, Turkey, Weekend Roundup

Photo of the Day: Dock at Troas

Apparently one fisherman grew tired of wading from his boat to land each day and built himself a little dock. This rickety walkway does nothing to remind the visitor of the glory of the ancient city of Troas and its important harbor, long reclaimed by the ocean.

The apostle Paul passed through the port several times, beginning with his first trip to Europe and the city of Philippi (Acts 16:8-10). Luke joined Paul at this time, based on the first occurrence of the first person plural in the narrative.

On his third missionary journey, Paul returned this way to visit friends as he traveled to Jerusalem.

His lengthy oratory put Eutychus to sleep, an event which might have gone unnoticed had not Eutychus been sitting in a window on the third floor (Acts 20:9). As the NET Bible puts it, “Fast asleep, he fell down from the third story and was picked up dead.”

Some have suggested that following his release from prison in Rome, Paul was later arrested in Troas. This would explain why Paul left his cloak and scrolls there, and why he requested that Timothy bring them to him quickly (2 Tim 4:13).

Strabo called Troas “one of the most famous cities of the world,” but by the sixth century, its harbors were apparently silted up and the city was no longer a significant crossroads in the Byzantine empire.

Tagged Photo of the Day, Turkey

Turkey Cancels Excavations of Foreign Countries

The New York Times reports on Turkey’s renewed demands that artifacts in museums around the world be given to them.

After years of pleading in vain for the return of Anatolia’s cultural treasures from Western museums, Turkey has started playing hardball. And it is starting to see some results.
This month, Germany reluctantly agreed to return a Hittite statue taken to Berlin by German archaeologists a century ago. “It was agreed that the statue will be handed over to Turkey as a voluntary gesture of friendship,” the German government said after weeks of negotiations between the countries’ foreign ministries.
Days later, Ankara announced it was stepping up a campaign to obtain a breakthrough in a similarly longstanding dispute with the Louvre in Paris over an Ottoman tile panel that went to France in 1895.
[…]
Although the Turkish cases for restitution of the sphinx and the tiles have always been more compelling than those for other treasures, like the Pergamon Altar, that were exported with permission of the Ottoman authorities, Ankara’s requests for their restitution went unanswered for years.
Then, Turkey changed tack. Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay announced earlier this year that he would kick German archaeologists out of the excavations at Hattusa, where they have been working for over a century, if the matter was not resolved. “I am determined not to renew the excavation license for Hattusa if the sphinx is not returned,” Mr. Gunay said in February.
[…]
In a first that rocked the archaeological world in Asia Minor, the digging licenses of two longstanding excavations conducted by German and French teams were revoked earlier this year.
[…]
The leader of the canceled German dig at Aizanoi, Ralf von den Hoff, said in an e-mail that his excavation had fallen victim to the ministry’s “extortionate demands” over the Hattusa sphinx.
[…]
But Germany says the return of the sphinx is a one-of-a-kind deal. “Both sides agreed that the sphinx is a singular case that is not comparable to other cases,” the German government said.
Turkey disagrees. “This is a revolution,” Mr. Gunay said last week about the agreement with the Germans. “This is a great development for the restitution of all our antique artifacts from abroad,” adding, “We will fight in the same way for the restitution of the other artifacts.”
[…]
Mr. Gunay said he foresaw a long struggle ahead, of a century or more, but added that he believed that “in the end Europe will return all of the cultural treasures that it has collected from all over the world.”

All governments take note. Turkey’s goal is nothing less than that “all of the cultural treasures” be “returned.”

The article has much more. Is there any irony in the fact that in order to get some old artifacts returned Turkey would cancel excavations which would fill their museums with new discoveries?

HT: Jack Sasson

Tagged Museums, Turkey

Germany Agrees to Give Sphinx of Hattusa to Turkey

In February, A.D. Riddle wrote here about the Turkish government’s demands that Germany give them the Sphinx of Hattusa. Turkey threatened to revoke the German license to excavate Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites. The Germans have been excavating this site before the modern country of Turkey was even founded.

Alexander Schick has informed us of an article in the German press that reports that Germany has surrendered to Turkish demands and will be sending the Sphinx to Istanbul (rough English translation here). Schick has also sent along photographs of the artifact. (Our previous post included only photos of the replica.)

The Sphinx of Hattusa (circled in red) will be given to Turkey. The replica is on the right. Also on the right is a stela of Esarhaddon from Sam’al/Zincirli, from 671 BC.

The Germans brought the Sphinx to Berlin in 1915 to restore it. At the time Germany and the Ottoman Empire were allies as the First World War was beginning.

If I was a German archaeologist working in Turkey, I’d plan to wrap my work up very soon. Those who succeed in blackmail are not likely to change their ways.

All photos courtesy of Alexander Schick.

Tagged Museums, Turkey