Papers by Zeynep Olgun
Seafaring and Mobility in the Late Antique Mediterranean
Journal of Mediterranean Knowledge, 2016
This paper aims to discuss the influence of interdependently effective political discourses and c... more This paper aims to discuss the influence of interdependently effective political discourses and cultural differences in early modern Mediterranean regarding the motives for official state portraiture. Therefore, the paper will focus on the portraits of monarchs, foremost the depictions of Philip IV of Spain by the court painter Velazquez and works of Titian under the patronage of Charles V and Philip II in order to analyse, how the conservative portraiture culture was established and maintained during the so-called Siglo de Oro . In contrast to the western Mediterranean, the intercultural portraiture style of the Ottoman Emperor Mehmed II will be given to emphasize the significant role of political inclinations of monarchs on their portraits. A multi-layered approach lies therefore at the basis of full socio-political and cultural comprehension of the paintings to overcome a simple analysis and to contextualize the work of art within both macro and micro historical perspective.
Journal of Mediterranean Knowledge, 2017
Report of the Conference about the Mediterranean held at the University of Salerno in September 2... more Report of the Conference about the Mediterranean held at the University of Salerno in September 2017, involving scholars of several disciplines.
Mediterranean Mosaic: History and Art, edited by E. Fonzo and H. Haakenson, 2019
Edited Book by Zeynep Olgun
Edited Books by Zeynep Olgun
The proposed book brings together articles stemming from the XXV Finnish Symposium on Late Antiqu... more The proposed book brings together articles stemming from the XXV Finnish Symposium on Late Antiquity, held in November 2018. The contributions are structured around three thematic sections, all contributing towards a new and interdisciplinary understanding of what the sea as an environment and the pursuit of seafaring meant for Late Antique societies. Part 1 looks at the practicalities of tackling the sea as an environment for purposes of travel, trade, and warfare. Part 2 engages with the questions of seaborne communications networks and islands as the characteristic hubs of the Mediterranean environment. Part 3 broadens this view with an exploration of the Mediterranean as an environment with great metaphorical and symbolic potential. Throughout the volume, the editors and contributors have maintained an emphasis on a multidisciplinary, broad-angled understanding of the Late Antiquity’s human interactions with their environments – built, natural, and imagined alike. Perhaps more than any other type of environment (equaled perhaps only by mountains), the sea has been understood as immovable to a proverbial degree, and indeed as often been envisioned as an entity wholly indifferent to the concerns of humanity. The sea was an exception and a limit to civilization, and that can be perceived on the conceptualizations of phenomena such as shipwrecks, symbolizing the dichotomy of the safe land and the ungovernable sea. Yet it was the sea’s capability of moving – both through actual mobility and through such emotions as fear, hope and pity – that formed one of the primary means of conceptualizing its significance to the Late Antique societies.
In particular, we feel that understanding the role of environment for ancient societies and culture should be pursued across a range of themes, allowing us to discern diachronic trends and continuities. The significance of the sea for both the concrete mobility of goods, people and ideas, as well as the usefulness of the sea as a metaphor and conceptual, occasionally heterotopic, space both elucidated through an approach that looks at the Mediterranean as an environment, and takes appropriate note of the most recent scholarship. Moreover, this volume will benefit from the use of the theoretical approach of the spatial turn that is a theoretical approach that places emphasis on space and place in disciplines linked with social sciences and the humanities. While never ignoring the fact that we are temporally (as well as environmentally) bound beings, during the past few decades, the use of this approach in different fields of
7
study has increasingly emphasised the importance of spatiality in understanding the history of the human being and of its relation with the environment. The subject is challenging, because it demonstrates that space is no longer a neutral concept and cannot be considered independent from that which it contains, and therefore neither can it be considered as immune to historical, political and aesthetic changes. Ideas of the reciprocal causal relationship between subjects and their environments have been common currency in spatially oriented disciplines (e.g. archaeology. geography, history, urban studies. This sort of approach can help set forth more nuanced theories regarding the relation between social systems and their environment - in this case, with the maritime cultural landscape – using case studies and methods applied in different disciplines such as archaeology, classics or history.
Thesis Chapters by Zeynep Olgun
A Sailor's Life For Me: The Middle Byzantine Sailor on Board and at Port, 2022
This thesis focuses on Byzantine sailors in the Middle Byzantine Period (c. 642 CE–1204 CE) in th... more This thesis focuses on Byzantine sailors in the Middle Byzantine Period (c. 642 CE–1204 CE) in the Eastern Mediterranean by drawing a general picture of the sailors’ daily lives. In so doing, I argue that the experience of being a Byzantine sailor was multifaceted and complex. To gain insight into this variety of experiences, this thesis relies on the interdisciplinary study of textual, archaeological, and ethnographic sources from the Middle Byzantine Period and beyond, based on the longue durée characteristics of seafaring and interacting with maritime landscapes. These experiences are the result of the commonalities of living in the maritime landscape and interacting with this landscape through seafaring. Maritime travel covered various distances (day-long, regional, long-distance) through different types of sailing patterns (cabotage, tramping, and direct), form the framework for travelling in the seascape. To better understand the movement of the sailor, I introduce two concepts: emplacement (sailors belonged to their local maritime communities and cultures) and displacement (sailors journeyed away from this community). On this journey, the sailor stopped at two different types of ports: short-distance ports which served those who moved within micro-regions, and ports connected to long-distance trade which provided certain establishments, such as taverns, inns, and brothels, for the sailors and were central to a sailor’s experience at the port. Some sailors, such as the crew of the eleventh-century Serçe Limanı shipwreck, moved outside the boundaries of the Byzantine Empire, and had to mediate linguistic, political, religious, and economic differences. Moreover, the daily experience on board the ship during journeys was regulated through laws, customs, and practices which governed the sailors’ behaviours, bodies, and souls. By discussing the daily lives of Byzantine sailors, this thesis contributes to the wider scholarship regarding Byzantine society and experiences, and by employing a variety of sources in an interdisciplinary manner, gives voice to a group who otherwise would remain silent.
Timber Supply for Byzantine Shipbuilding, 2020
Timber selection for shipbuilding was influenced by many separate factors in the Byzantine Empire... more Timber selection for shipbuilding was influenced by many separate factors in the Byzantine Empire. Wood and timber were used as fuel and construction material and were integral to daily life and economy in antiquity. The supply of shipbuilding timber, however, required trees of specific qualities to be felled, and often means to transport them to the shipyards. Written sources such as legal documents, historians’ and geographers’ accounts, monastic foundational documents (typika), and hagiographies, and the material evidence of archaeological wood and pollen data, provide evidence of Byzantine timber exploitation. In recent years, the available evidence of shipwrecks in the Eastern Mediterranean has increased, which provides a new perspective for understanding the Byzantine timber procurement and use. In this thesis, I examine the written and material evidence regarding timber supply for Byzantine shipbuilding from the 4th to 11th century in the Eastern Mediterranean. I give an overview of timber in the written sources and evaluate how much it reveals about the patterns of timber movement in the Byzantine Empire. Furthermore, I discuss the role of shipbuilding timber in politics and naval conflicts in the Eastern Mediterranean. Finally, I evaluate how archaeological material and the shipwrecks contribute to this broader picture, analyzing 45 shipwrecks dating to 4th–11th centuries, recovered from the Eastern Mediterranean. This thesis proposes that the supply of timber for shipbuilding depends on a variety of factors including the environment, the socio-political and economic conditions, as well as the types of timber necessary for the ship to be built.
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Papers by Zeynep Olgun
Edited Book by Zeynep Olgun
Edited Books by Zeynep Olgun
In particular, we feel that understanding the role of environment for ancient societies and culture should be pursued across a range of themes, allowing us to discern diachronic trends and continuities. The significance of the sea for both the concrete mobility of goods, people and ideas, as well as the usefulness of the sea as a metaphor and conceptual, occasionally heterotopic, space both elucidated through an approach that looks at the Mediterranean as an environment, and takes appropriate note of the most recent scholarship. Moreover, this volume will benefit from the use of the theoretical approach of the spatial turn that is a theoretical approach that places emphasis on space and place in disciplines linked with social sciences and the humanities. While never ignoring the fact that we are temporally (as well as environmentally) bound beings, during the past few decades, the use of this approach in different fields of
7
study has increasingly emphasised the importance of spatiality in understanding the history of the human being and of its relation with the environment. The subject is challenging, because it demonstrates that space is no longer a neutral concept and cannot be considered independent from that which it contains, and therefore neither can it be considered as immune to historical, political and aesthetic changes. Ideas of the reciprocal causal relationship between subjects and their environments have been common currency in spatially oriented disciplines (e.g. archaeology. geography, history, urban studies. This sort of approach can help set forth more nuanced theories regarding the relation between social systems and their environment - in this case, with the maritime cultural landscape – using case studies and methods applied in different disciplines such as archaeology, classics or history.
Thesis Chapters by Zeynep Olgun
In particular, we feel that understanding the role of environment for ancient societies and culture should be pursued across a range of themes, allowing us to discern diachronic trends and continuities. The significance of the sea for both the concrete mobility of goods, people and ideas, as well as the usefulness of the sea as a metaphor and conceptual, occasionally heterotopic, space both elucidated through an approach that looks at the Mediterranean as an environment, and takes appropriate note of the most recent scholarship. Moreover, this volume will benefit from the use of the theoretical approach of the spatial turn that is a theoretical approach that places emphasis on space and place in disciplines linked with social sciences and the humanities. While never ignoring the fact that we are temporally (as well as environmentally) bound beings, during the past few decades, the use of this approach in different fields of
7
study has increasingly emphasised the importance of spatiality in understanding the history of the human being and of its relation with the environment. The subject is challenging, because it demonstrates that space is no longer a neutral concept and cannot be considered independent from that which it contains, and therefore neither can it be considered as immune to historical, political and aesthetic changes. Ideas of the reciprocal causal relationship between subjects and their environments have been common currency in spatially oriented disciplines (e.g. archaeology. geography, history, urban studies. This sort of approach can help set forth more nuanced theories regarding the relation between social systems and their environment - in this case, with the maritime cultural landscape – using case studies and methods applied in different disciplines such as archaeology, classics or history.