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Published: April 2nd 2008
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Bronze Weapons
The swords/tools were a lot smaller than you would think. Given that the artifacts were behind a big glass window, it was hard to get a good approximation of their sizes... so I resorted to including my feet in the shot. I am long overdue for some kind of update, though I haven’t really traveled around anywhere, or done much earth-shattering exciting activities, or traveled anywhere really far out or interesting. What I have been doing is hanging out with people.
Back on March 22nd, I visited went with a few friends to explore some of the archeology of Istanbul, housed in a museum complex. It was a huge gathering of buildings, and we only managed to visit one, which included some artifacts from Anatolia (basically, mainland Turkey). It was pretty cool, and we got to see some of the artifacts dug up in Troy, as well as some general stuff (tools, weapons) from the Eastern parts of Turkey from ancient times. The most interesting thing on display there was a number of clay tablets containing fragments of the texts that I am studying in my Hittite course. The Hittites used cuneiform writing to express their spoken language, which worked because cuneiform utilizes a large number of characters (around 300), each symbolizing a different syllable, meaning that if we used cuneiform today, today would be written with two letters, and character would be written in three. The most intriguing thing is
Anitta Text ...... and foot.
The text of the famous Anitta, a ruler who was a precursor to the Hittites. the size of all of these tablets. With my photos, I tried to hold up a wallet to show you the approximate size of the tablets, but had to resort to using my foot. The tablet is about the size of my wallet.
I saw a bunch of other nifty things in the museum, but I’ll skip to the most amusing part, which was the Trojan Horse exhibit near the Children’s Museum, which was located near the lobby. Just look at the picture. If the horse was half that obvious the Trojans deserve to be crushed by the “devious Greeks.”
Easter happened that weekend as well, and another exchange student offered to include about a dozen of us in her Easter tradition of a crazy amount of homemade food, which we were all grateful for. Although I don’t have pictures of the process, I can assure you it was pretty intense, as I saw it in action for about 5 minutes that afternoon. She and a friend made pasta, and by that I mean homemade pasta, which basically involves creating a huge volcano-style pile of flour, and then filling the mouth of the flour mountain with eggs, and
Close-up of the Anitta Text
You can see the what remains of the cuneiform text. For some reason, the Hittites seemed to have an obsession with this text, as multiple copies are found in their archives.
It's an odd obsession, because Anitta placed a curse on the city of Hattusha, which was resettled by the Hittites within a few hundred years and transformed into their capital. then slowly mixing it all together into huge pancakes which are then cut up. At least that’s what I think was going on… that’s what it looked like. The homemade pasta was complimented with a homemade tomato sauce, and then there was homemade pudding of the chocolate and vanilla varieties for desert. The second biggest understatement of the year is that it was good, with “Istanbul is cool” barely edging it out of the top spot.
My weekly schedule is developing, and it’s becoming more and more of a routine. However, last week added some twists, which is why I feel I should tell you about them.
Every Wednesday there is a soccer game, which is always fun. I’m slowly improving my skills, and according to one European player, I’m “good for an American.” Which I suppose has to count for something. Anyways, earlier in the day, I was invited to Hakan’s apartment for a dinner cooked by another friend, Murat. I went, but do to a miscommunication on my part, and a slim in memory by Hakan (who thought it was Wednesday), we ran into some problems. Reality kicked in as one of Hakan’s roommates started to
Trojan Horse
C'mon. They didn't see that trick coming? It has a ladder.
:) gear up, at which point Hakan realized what had happened, and after apologizing profusely for the confusion, gave me some food from the fridge, some bread and a small bag of cookies to eat before I left with the other Hakan. He and his roommate then made me agree to return after the game. I did, arriving around 10:15 and was treated to a my own Turkish meal and conversation with some cool and insanely generous Turks.
Many of us here have been treated to the generosity of the members of the xChange commission, especially the generosity of Hakan, who has helped us all with innumerable things. Because of this, several of us have been trying to plan some kind of dinner cooked by us for the xChange people. Josh and I had been thinking of trying to do something this Friday, but when we asked Hakan, he turned the tables on us; saying that he had planned on inviting the two of us over to his parent’s place on that night.
Friday rolled around, and Hakan’s father came to pick us up. We drove about 20 minutes westward to their apartment, ending up more or less near
After Breakfast
Hakan's dad had to go to work for a bit Saturday morning, and his mom and little brother were out as well, so it was just the three of us for breakfast. There are several English-speaking channels in Turkey... a few for the news, a few for TV shows and movies. I think we were watching the Simpsons at this point. Ataturk Airport. The apartment was very nice, and was like any home in the US, which I hope my photos can illustrate. Neither of Hakan’s parents spoke English, so while his little brother played in the other room, and Hakan helped his mother with dinner, Josh and I attempted to stumble through some conversation with his father. It was hard, because many things are easy to ask but hard to explain. For instance, Josh knows how to ask “what do you do?” for reference to working, but neither of us to figure out what exactly Hakan’s dad did, even with Hakan popping in and out to help us. Near as we could tell, he did something at a factory that buffed metal parts.
The only problem with large Turkish meals is that you never know what the main course is. Bread was spread across the table, and we were given soup as a starter, with several appetizers, whose names I cannot remember. This was tasty and filling, and was followed by these eggplant boats stuffed with things like ground beef and tomatoes and a few other things. Josh and I polished ours off, and were quite happy with the
Turkish Family
Hakan, with his family. His little brother is about 12 years old. meal… except that it wasn’t over. The next round included the main course, which was a chicken and potato dish served over heaping piles of rice. It was delicious, but after two helpings (there doesn’t seem to be “a little” serving in Turkey unless you do it yourself), I was about ready to die in a happy tummy explosion.
We spent the night, and in the morning, had another large Turkish breakfast (thought it was around noon) containing cheese, bread, jam, eggs and socok (a kind of spicy sausage thing), olives, and lots of other great food. We were welcomed to stay another night, but as we had already made plans to watch a big football game that evening, Josh and I had to decline, and we left in the late afternoon with some very meaningful and much appreciated parting gifts. Turkey is a very warm and hospitable place, and nothing has really illustrated this to me more than the hospitality and generosity of Hakan and his family.
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