Ottoman Inscriptions

This paper addresses a few of the numerous issues concerning the activities of European antiquarians and the ancient Greek and Roman inscriptions of Asia Minor over the course of four hundred years from 1400 to 1800, touching upon five matters. Firstly, the collection and removal of antiquities including inscriptions by Europeans. Secondly, the varied functions of the visible ancient inscriptions for the Ottoman state and its inhabitants, both talismanic and therapeutic, and of the “non-literal reading” of an ancient inscription, distinct from the European antiquarian interest in the literal text of inscriptions, in establishing record of, and collections of the inscribed historical texts surviving from antiquity. Thirdly, the question of how safe a home was Europe for antiquities, including inscriptions and manuscripts that were brought from Asia Minor, and how much of scholarly importance that had survived was then lost in transit at sea and in Europe in wars and disasters? Fourthly, the problems with the transcriptions made by hand, the content of the record made and its accuracy. Was the inscription regarded simply as a text, prioritised as a text, or, was the text transcribed in its context including the epigraphic surface, its shape and relief carving, if any, its physical location if in situ, was it understood as forming a whole, and was it recorded as such? Were the letter forms, the number of lines, the different size of letters and words in an inscription, misspellings, etc., accurately noted or not? And, finally, the problems generated through the printed publication from the 16th c. onwards of the transcriptions that had been made of inscriptions, in particular, those employing a standard font in publication for the study of inscriptions, not least impacting the understanding of orthography. Again, was it a matter of the antiquarian publishing just the text of an inscription, or the text within its context, to scale, including the number of lines, the size of letters, the particular letter forms, the presence of guidelines, any remains of applied colour and its support, etc.

Bu çalışmamızda Niğde İli, Eskisaray Mahallesi, Hakkı Eroğlu Caddesi, Nusrettin Sokak’ta bulunan ve mahalle insanınca “Nusreddin Baba Yatırı” olarak adlandırılan mezar yapısı mimari ve süslemeleri açısından incelenmiş ve tanıtılmaya çalışılmıştır. Mahalle sakinlerince mezarın Nusreddin Baba’ya ait olduğunu ifade edilmektedirler. Mezar daha öncesinde bulunduğu kâgir taş binanın dışında iken 1980’li yıllarda yapılan üst kata çıkışı sağlayan betonarme merdivenin altına denk gelmesi sonucu mezar yapısı bina içine geçmiştir.

This article deals with a group of 142 gravestones kept at the ‘Villa Ariadne’ in Knossos, Heraklion (Ott. Kandiye), Crete, Greece. The first part of the article provides information about Islam’s perception of death and the afterlife, burial customs, cemeteries, graves, and gravestones, with an emphasis on the Ottoman period, as well as about the Ottoman cemeteries of Heraklion. The second part of the article contains an analysis of the 142 gravestones, which cover the period from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century, and their epitaphs. As the gravestones in Knossos have been re-used as building material, none has survived in full. Even though this prevents a comprehensive study of the gravestones, it is clear that, in terms of their shapes, decoration, and epitaphs, they belong to the wider Ottoman burial culture, which is thought to have crystallised in the sixteenth century. The Appendix of the article contains transcriptions of the best-preserved epitaphs in the Latin script and translations into Greek, as well as tables with the dimensions of the gravestones and personal information about the dead, where this is available. A selection of the most representative gravestones is presented in photos.

The epigraphic material published in the present paper derives from towns of the Regional Unit of Messenia, namely Kalamata, Methoni, Kyparissia, Pylos, Asini, Petalidi, Vasilada, and it currently belongs to the 26th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities. The corpus comprises eight inscriptions in total, six funerary, one monumental and one on a cannon. The collection covers mainly the eighteenth century, whereas the inscription no. 1 is dated in the early seventeenth century. The material on which they are inscribed is white and greyish fine- and coarse-grained marble of high quality, and bronze, meticulously sculpted. In most cases, the decorative patterns of the main side consist of the equitant shallow cartouches, which accommodate embossed inscriptions usually in a relief technique. The type of script most frequently used is the basīṭ celī s̱ülüs̱, (nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8) and its simplest form (ḳırma) (no. 5); inscription no. 1 is incised in the basīṭ celī taʿlīḳ script

NİĞDE’DE BAZI MESCİT KİTABELERİ
Bu makalede, Niğde Merkez İlçesinde bulunan, ağırlığı Kayaardı ve Tepebağları Mahallelerindeki mescitlerin kitabeleri konu edilmiştir. Bağ mescidi kitabeleri olarak adlandırdığımız bu kitabeler ilk olarak: Savaş Maraşlı- Mustafa Eryaman tarafından yazılan; “Kaybolmuş Bir Geleneğin Tanıkları Niğde Bağ Mescitleri” adlı kitapta yayınlanmıştır. Konu edilen Mescit kitabelerinden bir tanesi de Sır Ali Mescidi( M. 1544-45)nin (önceki yayınlarda kitabesi olmadığı belirtilmiş) kitabesidir. Makale de Sır Ali Mescidi inşa kitabesi ilk kez yayınlanmaktadır. Sır Ali Mescidi inşa kitabesinde mescidin anisi "Hace Ahmed" olarak görülmektedir. Dolayısıyla Sır Ali Mescidi ismi "Hace Ahmed Mescidi" olarak değişmektedir. Ayrıca bu makale de Niğde merkez ilçesinde tespiti yapılan iki kaya oyma Mescit/mezar yapısı da konu edilmiştir.

Bu çalışmamızda Niğde İli, Sırali Mahallesi, Elhacı Mahmud Caddesi üzerinde bulunan ve yöre insanınca “Yeşil Mezar” ve “Elhacı Mahmut Yatırı” olarak adlandırılan mezar yapısı mimari ve süslemeleri açısından incelenerek, bilim dünyasına tanıtılacaktır. Mahalle sakinlerince mezarın El-Hacı Mahmud’a ait olduğunu ifade etmektedirler. El-Hacı Mahmud Efendi Hazretleri'nin kabri 1950’li yıllarda şehir içi yolları genişletilirken kaldırılmak istenmiş, fakat bu işi edepsizce yapmak isteyenlerin başlarına çeşitli kötü olaylar gelmiştir. Yerinden kaldırdıkları takdirde büyük felaketlerden korkan ilgililer, El-Hacı Mahmud Efendi Hazretleri'nin kabrine bir daha dokunamamışlardır.

This article examines the political and social tensions of late Ottoman Haifa through the history of the Hejaz Railway and a particular monument, the ‘Exalted Column’ (Sütun-u Ali), a monument erected in 1903 to commemorate the beginning of Ottoman construction on the Haifa railway branch. By first establishing the use of railways and railway architecture as a means of exerting state power in a comparative and local perspective, the railway structures in Haifa are analysed in the context of that city's other monumental buildings. This then leads to a discussion of the Sütūn-u Ali as a celebration of Ottoman authority and modernity, and of the developing Ottoman–German alliance. The symbolism of the column's iconography is shown to reflect a variety of problems that the Ottoman state faced in Haifa at the turn of the twentieth century.