Gaziantep and the Euphrates River

On the first weekend in November, ARIT took a trip to Gaziantep in Southeast Turkey.  It is interesting that I keep going to SE Turkey to see cities I had never heard of, but somehow I keep missing the one place in that region I really want to see.  One of these days I will get to Nemrutdag...

Gaziantep is directly up from the S in Syria

Gaziantep is known for mosaics and baklava.  It wasn't as different from Istanbul as Mardin or Midiyat was a few weeks ago, but it was warmer and dryer and more conservative than here.  It is a pretty big city and there is significant metal working industry and of course ancient civilizations.  It is not too far from the Euphrates river and therefore part of the fertile crescent.  

My flight was at 5:15, so I didn't have to miss my last class, but it was going to be close.  Sibel called a cab to come and meet me behind the science building at 3:15 and I walked out of class right as the bell rang, picked up my bag, dropped off my computer and went out the door.  I had considered taking the cab just as far as Taksim and taking the airport bus from there, but I knew I wouldn't catch the 3:30 and I worried that the 4pm bus would be too late.  I took the cab all the way to the airport and even though there was Friday afternoon getting out of school traffic, we still made it in just over an hour.  Tony and August took a cab from Arnavutkoy at about the same time, but I didn't know about it until it was too late to rearrange my transportation.  I got there and it was fine, I just don't like spending 70TL I don't have to spend.

We arrived to a very nice but generic hotel and had time to freshen up before meeting to go to dinner.  Dinner was fine, lots of mezes then a cold yogurt soup and then mixed grill sis for the main course.  Baklava for dessert of course.  The restaurant was big and empty, clearly a touristy place in the low season, but it serves alcohol.  I had noticed before, but hadn't really thought about the connection between ARIT events and alcohol.  For some people it is very important to be able to have wine, beer and/or Raki with dinner.  For this reason, only restaurants that serve alcohol are chosen for dinner.  In a Muslim country, especially in a more conservative region, not all restaurants will serve alcohol, in fact the best restaurants probably wont.  If I was given the choice between the best food in a region (especially a region known for its food) and the chance to have a glass of wine, I would pick the food and I dont think it is just because I don't drink that much.  I wish a poll could be taken or rational heads could prevail on this because it seems like a waste.  I guess the alcohol at this place was very expensive anyway and so even the people who drank were upset.  

From left to right: assorted flavored butters, roasted red pepper paste, mixed cucumbers, pepers and cheeses, green salad, filled eggplant and yogurt with sun dried tomato.  All served with bread of course.

We had a fairly leisurely morning followed by an unexpected surprise.  Scott, who was our leader, did not expect the Gaziantep archaeological museum to be open.  It used to house the mosaics, but since they moved to their own museum (better to show them off) they have been closed for reorganization.  I felt kind of bad for them, it would be like if a ok sort of team had one really good player which made them a pretty good team then had their star recruited away to another team, leaving a hole in the line up.  They will get their act together again eventually, but it takes some thought.  Anyway, it was open and they still had some cool stuff, so we went in.

This was a simulation of a burial cave from Roman times.  The sarcophagi are real, but the walls are fake.  We learned that the carvings on the the sarcophagi are to make things festive when you have death parties.  You dress the dead up in their best so they fit in with the rest of the crowd there celebrating.  

I thought this was very interesting  not only can you see what things cost, but you can also see how things got more expensive over the centuries.  It is hard to read, but the 3rd line from the bottom shows the single day wage for a school teacher.  With my two coins I could buy four liters of oil or 3 kg of meat in the 5.4th century BC.

Taking my daily pay as a school teacher from above, I could only buy 1.4 kg of a nails or half a ladder.  But even taking into account the time interval, I would still make more that twice what a slave made.  

I am glad we went to the archaeological museum before the mosaic museum, because in the other order it would have been quite a let down.  The Zeugma Mosaic Museum was fantastic.  It was well laid out, well signed and magnificently presented.  Selcuk asked me what grade I would give the museum when we got back on to the bus.  I replied an A-.  He asked what was wrong with it and I replied I wish they had more of the technical information.  How were mosaics made by the original artists?  And how were they preserved/transferred by the archaeologists to this site?  Laura thought an American museum would have included this information and I am not sure it would have, but it would have been cool.  I did ask Scott about how they are moved.  He said back in the day, they had to cover a mosaic with plaster and then break it into pieces, transfer it to the new position and remove the plaster.  Now, he says they have a polymer resin they basically paint over the top which keeps them in place and then you can roll up the mosaic like a rug and unroll it in a new location.  This sounds cool, and much easier than before, but I am still unclear on how you get the little rock pieces off the surface they are stuck to in the original location.  Here is an exerpt from an article I found on moving mosaics:

Archaeologists and conservators thoroughly clean and dry the mosaic, then use animal glue to attach a strong linen or canvas cover to protect the top. After the glue dries, firmly attaching the pieces of the mosaic to the cloth, a layer of jute netting is affixed with animal glue to the surface. When this has dried, part of the original plaster footing of the mosaic is undercut. If the mosaic is small, a board larger than the mosaic is slipped under it to support it. Larger mosaics sometimes have to be moved in sections. In one case, archaeologists moved a large mosaic by skillfully wrapping it around a long log.

When it is time for the restoration work to begin, a new plaster bed is prepared in a wooden frame that is slightly larger than the mosaic. With the fabric side up, the mosaic is set into its new footing. Approximately one week later, after the plaster has set, a solvent is painted on the fabric. Workers can then detach the fabric slowly and carefully.

This article is adapted in pan from A Complete Manual of Field Archaeology: Tools and Techniques of Field Work for Archaeologists by Martha Joukowsky (Prentice-Hall, Inc.. Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey),! pp. 255-266.

A combination of mythological scene and geometric patterns in this huge mosaic that would have been someones dining room floor.

The mosaics here were incredible.  They were very well preserved and largely complete.  The color range was amazing and the detail unbelievable.  (and the superlatives in that last sentence, out of control) I liked the mythological pictures and they were very detailed and artistic and all that, but I really liked the geometric patterns.  I could see having a giant mosaic in my living room instead of a rug, but it would be kind of cold on the feet in the winter.  Perhaps I will learn how to make mosaics and tile my kitchen...

Close up of some of the geometric shapes.

It looks like a tapestry or painting from far away.  

I wonder what it would look like with furniture in it...

This is perhaps the most famous of the mosaics of Zeugma.  It is actually a piece of a mosaic that was stolen.  The rest of the picture has been lost.  It is called the 'Gypsy Girl' but there is some speculation that it is actually a young Alexander the Great.  What is really amazing is the shading and the life like position of the hair.  

In a region known for its baklava, it is all good, but there still has to be a best.  We made a special stop to visit Kocak to buy from the best.  I accidentally got kuru baklava, or dry baklava, which is not what they are famous for, but it was still the best baklava I have had.  I think I like the dryness of it better than soggy baklava.  It stayed crisp and flaky even for several days.

The baklava experts at Kocak in Gaziantep

At lunch we were joined by a local expert who told us about the area and the products in the bazaar.  She was very friendly and knowledgeable and introduced us to several shops and answered our questions as we walked through the market.

Dried red peppers and dried okra on strings saved up for the winter.  

The area is known for its metal working, specifically copper.  

Perhaps it was for show, but many shop keepers were working on things as we walked by.  I really liked this guy's smile.

This was a good twofer picture.  One, it has a gozleme maker at work and two it has the weird snake woman we saw all over Mardin.  I still don't know what her story is.  But I do know what gozleme is - a tasty snack kind of like a quesidilla.  A flat circle of dough with melted cheese or potato or patlican or, my favorite, sugar and lemon.  Yum! 

This was at the same cafe were we stopped to get the pistachio coffee.  Locals playing tavla.  The next table over was smoking the nargalie water pipe, but I didn't get their picture.

The light was fading and we were given the option of hanging out in the bazaar and finding our own way back to the hotel, or going with Scott and Tony to the fortress on the hill.  Of course, Scott was deep in conversation so we had walked most of the way around the fortress before he realized that we had passed the entrance 90 degrees back.

There had been some sort of building on this site for thousands of years, all built on top of each other, making excavation very difficult, but also very interesting.  

On the way up there were a series of memorials to martyred Turks after some conflict with the French.  Folks gave Michel a hard time about it (him being French and all) but I didn't ever get the full story of what happened. 

There are lots of possible captions to this photo.  I'll let you use your own imagination.

Dinner this night was some better, but instead of the place being dead, it was very loud and hard to hear our neighbors.  I was startled to find out that the woman sitting to my left, who I had maybe met once before on a similar trip, was from Palo Alto.  In fact, we had gone to the same elementary school, although not at the same time.  She was a graduate of Cubberly and her mom still lives on South Court.  That makes three Palo Altans I have met on ARIT trips.  It isn't even that big of a town.

Zeugma, on the Euphrates River. 

On Sunday morning went out to the site on the Euphrates that the mosaics came from, a place named Zeugma, which means connection or bridge, where there had been a Roman settlement that spanned both sides of the river.  Several years ago the Turkish government built a dam on the Euphrates and flooded the river valley north of it along with all the rivers edge villages.  The villas that the mosaics were originally in are now under water.  There are a few other villas that were up the hill and they are still in the process of excavation not unlike the Terrace houses at Ephesus.  It was cool to see where the mosaics came from and to see other examples in situ.  Looking at this and at other archological sites overwhelms me when I think too hard about all the work that comes with finding, uncovering, understanding and reassembling what is found.  You want to do it carefully, but if you are too careful, you will never get anything done.

More mosaics where in their original setting.

Getting on the boat the unconventional way.

From the excavation we were supposed to get on a boat to go up the Euphrates for the afternoon.  It took us a bit of time to find the boat and then to figure out how to get onto the boat since it wasn't really docked at an official iskele.  We had to walk along the top of this wall and then onto a tin roof before hopping onto the boat.  There were a couple of folks who didn't feel comfortable walking the plank, so I walked along side holding their hand for balance and reassurance until they got to the roof.  Everyone made it and everyone was fine.

The boat trip itself was amazing.  The water was calm and the day beautiful.  We cruised for about 4 hours, going up the river taking in the sights.  We could see the effect of the flooding in several villages that are now half under water.  In some of the towns there were still people living in the upper parts of the villages.  The water was not clear enough to see very far into, so we couldn't see the submerged buildings, but the reflection off the water was really amazing.  My favorite picture of the trip is the one below with the minaret all you can see of the mosque above the water.

A flooded town and its reflection in the Euphrates River.

The light on the water as the boat created a gentle wake.

A viable town farther up the river.  I don't know if it was flooded, or if it was high enough to begin with that it just now has more beach front property than it did. 

Our final destination was a Rum Kale (Roman Castle) way up the bank of the river.  Apparently it was a way post for folks ~2000 years ago in one form or another.  I did feel a bit like James Bond, climbing up the side of this mountain to get to a door to a castle.

The stairs to the door in the wall.  Cool entrance to a castle from the water.

From the bend in the river, a view of the castle.  Some of these look like the sky cells mentioned in the Game of Thrones books, but the fall wasn't as far and I think it was just that the balconies were missing. 

Laura waits patiently before going through the archway so I can take the picture.

View from the Rum Kale down on the river. 

Pistachio and olive trees. I am not a big fan of pistachios, but they were everywhere. 

The return trip from the boat to the airport was not as exciting as in Diyabakir, we made it in plenty of time.  I even got to spend a few minutes in the VIP lounge because a friend with a business class ticket could bring in two guests.  We were back in Istanbul ~9pm and I elected to take the bus back to campus since the timing was perfect and I had already splurged on a cab in one direction.

Looking back on this trip, I recognize that the pace was fairly relaxed and the information was relevent and interesting.  I really liked the boat trip, more than I expected to.  At first I thought spending 4 hours on a boat wouldn't count as seeing anything, but I feel like I really have seen the country side there, more than I would if we had visited half a dozen mosques or tombs.  I know there isn't the same level of history in California, at least not that can be visited or remembered, but I wish something like this group existed there.  A big enough association of interesting people willing to spend a weekend going somewhere and seeing something.  Of course I also wish that there was a science oriented tour group...perhaps I will have to start one.

German Bayram

One of the most important Turkish holidays 'celebrates' the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son.  People sacrifice goats and sheep and eat and visit family and shops are closed and things shut down, so in general it is a good time to get out of town.  I went to Germany to visit Alette and her family.  It was great!

On Thursday I went with Alette to her school, a public, German, 5-12th grade school.  It was weird to see such a wide range of ages in the halls.  Students take chemistry a few hours a week starting in the 8th grade. If they are science track kids they take more hours, but it is still a spiral plan where students discover the material at different levels.  I got to see an 11th grade class of non-science track kids (physics refugees as Alette calls them) working on the structure of glucose and a 12th grade class also looking at biomolecules.  They spend a lot more time doing organic chemistry than I am used to, but the kids learn the stuff more deeply for working it out on their own.

Alette's classroom and lab.  You can see the swing down gas and electricity from the ceiling which turns the classroom into a lab. 

 I also got to go to an 8th grade English class.  The teacher gave the students 10 minutes to think up questions for me while he showed me the textbook they are using.  They were in a unit on America and had read about the Grand Canyon and New York City.  They asked all of the usual questions, where I live, what I do, if I like Germany.  They asked if I spoke German, I replied 'nine' which confused them, but then they laughed.  Then I said I was trying to learn Turkish, and since languages were hard for me, one language at a time was all I could manage.  There was a Turkish student in the class, so I said 'gunaydin' to him and we moved on.  One student was quite persistent in trying to find out how old I am.  I told her the same thing I tell my chemistry students, I have as many years as strontium has protons.  They have just started taking chemistry so I knew she would have the resources to figure it out if she wanted to pursue it.  They asked if I had been to the Grand Canyon, which I have not, and to New York which I have.  They asked if I had been to a deli in NY and I said I had and that my favorite thing to get at a deli is a bagel with cream cheese.  Of course I said this because that is what their textbook says you can get at a New York deli.  I could tell they were delighted to find out that their textbook wasn't lying to them.  I'll leave that realization for someone else to uncover in a few more years.  Overall they were very respectful and interested, their English was very good and I had a good time talking with them.

Alette was meeting with some students after school who were preparing for a chemistry competition so I hung out in the prep room, studying my German periodic table and checking email on the school computer.  I was surprised to find that the y and the z were switched on the German keyboard.  I guess they don't use the y so much and have exiled it to the corner.  English must get its ys from French instead of German...

It was very interesting to get to see a German school and have the opportunity to talk with Alette about the German school system.  Her school has students from 5th grade to 12th grade on the same campus and it was weird to see such a range of ages together.  They teach many subjects at the same time using a spiral curriculum.  For instance, students start taking 2 hours a week of chemistry in 8th grade and will take at least 2 hours a week for the next 5 years.  If they are science track students that number will increase in 11th and 12th grades, but by the time they finish, they have had 10 hours total, more chemistry than an American student would have even if you count 8th grade physical science as chemistry, unless the student takes AP chemistry.  They have a much stronger emphasis on organic chemistry, where in America we focus on physical chemistry. They also have a discovery style where the information is not presented, but uncovered by the students.  The pace seems very slow to me, but I guess the students learn the material very well.  They  must be very efficient since they finish school before lunch almost every day.  I asked Alette what the students do in the afternoon. She said they have music, sports, jobs, homework, all the regular things, but perhaps they are more relaxed about these things.

After school we went for a quick walking tour of Stuttgart's historic old town center.  It was very nice and the weather was perfect.

Kaiser Maximillain II - savior of Stutgart

Alette doesn't teach on Friday, so we got to be home when Niels' 2nd grade class came by.  His teacher takes the whole class on a walk around the town to see where everyone lives and get a sense of where things are in the town.  It seems like a really cool idea.  If a kid needs help, he knows where some friendly houses are and if he wants a play date, he knows where to go.  Both Niels and Debora walk to and from school which I think is really cool and I asked Alette about it.  She says all the kids do it and they learn independence very early.  She doesn't think the streets are any less dangerous than they are in California, except that there are more folks out walking.  Kids are taught what to do if a stranger approaches them.

Niels' 2nd grade class and Mr. Mole

Kids start learning English in elementary school, but it starts out pretty basic.  Alette told me they knew the Mr. Mole song and she asked the teacher to have them sing it to me while they were eating their cup cakes and drinking their apfelschooler.  I have found a video of it and posted it below, but in case you want to sing along, here are the lyrics:

I am not a rat or a cat on a mat.

I am not a hare or a bear in a lair.

I am not a dog or a frog on a log.

I am Mr. Mole and I live in a hole.  

After the kids left and we cleaned up, we went grocery shopping.  It was weird to go to Real, a store I know in Turkey, but in Germany.  The Christmas decorations were right next to the Halloween candy and there was a huge pork sausage section.  It made me wonder if I could work in Germany...I bought several pork products and candy items that I can't find in Istanbul and of course salt and vinegar potato chips.  Besides these treasures, my favorite part was the bottle return machine.  Many glass bottles have a deposit on them and you can get credit for returning them by feeding them through this machine and it tallies up your returns and gives you a receipt that you take up to the register when you check out which counts against your total.

The bottle return machine at the Real in Wanweill

When the Debora got home we picked Soren up from preschool and Neils up from piano lesson, we went to the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart.  It was a good day to be inside a museum as it was getting colder and cloudier and it was a really good museum.

Mercedes-Benz Museum

The museum was an instant hit with Soren when he found the horse on a skateboard.  

We started by taking the elevator to the top of the museum with our audio guides and we worked our way down the museum and forward in time.  Everything was very nicely laid out and signed.  I was impressed with the collection of vehicles (original, restored, or replicated) but I guess one should expect high quality from a Mercedes-Benz museum.

A 1885 Daimler, the first motorcycle, 8mph maximum

1899 Benz Dos-a-Dos, powered by the contra engine, the first opposed piston engine, 22mph max

There were many interesting fact presented at the museum, but one that struck my fancy was that before the infrastructure of gas stations was established, motorists would get the their fuel from the chemist (pharmacy) in each town they visited.  This was back when pharmacists did actual chemistry and presumably had the hydrocarbons on hand as solvents.  I wonder if they had to order extra...I does draw attention to the parallels now regarding the lack of infrastructure for electric or plug in hybrid cars or hydrogen fuel cell cars. If you build the cars, the infrastructure will come, but it might start out very slowly.

The first car with the brand name Mercedes.  Emil Jellinek, a cusomer of Daimler and then a car salesman, pressured Daimler to build an car with an especially powerful engine and name it after his daugther, Mercedes. 1898  

The Mercedes.

I was also impressed with the forthrightness with which the museum addressed its involvement with the Nazis and WWII as shown in the following panels.

We got home in time for a light dinner and to make plans for Saturday.  Snow was on the forecast and the question was if we should still go to Strasbourg, France, as planned.  If we got all the way there and it was slushy it could be quite miserable, on the other hand, anywhere we went would be the same, so why not take the chance.  This brings up the question of why my friends who live in Europe are so eager to leave their countries when I visit them.  I went to the Netherlands to visit Steven and Kim and they immediately take me to Germany, not once but twice in two days.  I go to Germany to visit Alette and her family takes me to France.  It turned out well in both cases, I just don't know if all Europeans secretly believe that the next country over is better, or if I am just an excuse to visit somewhere just a little farther away that they wouldn't take themselves to on their own.

We drove about 2 hours to Strasbourg and went directly to the Notre-Dame Cathedral.  Unfortunately we got there during the astronomical clock demonstration and video, so we missed that, but the building was still spectacular.  It did call to mind some comparisons to all the mosques I have been seeing since I have lived in Turkey.  The most striking features are more similar than disparate.  Both tend to be very large, old, stone buildings.  The are oriented with specific directions in mind and they have fancy doors.  Two of the most obvious differences are the lack of face/body depictions in mosques and the availability of seating in a church.  An interesting contrast is that in order to show respect in a church, one uncovers their head, but the exact opposite in a mosque.  Odd that the same god should have such different preferences.

One of the entrances to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg, France.

The requisite organ picture for my Tims.

After visiting the inside of the church we climbed up seemingly endless steps to the platform on top of it.  From there we had a fairly spectacular view of the town even though the day was pretty crummy.  I am not sure you can tell from this picture, but there was a clear divide between the old part of town and the more modern part.

The view from the platform on top of the cathedral.

After the cathedral we went to have lunch.  Flammekuche or tarte flambee is a specialty of the Alsace region and a favorite of Mathais.  The guide book describes it as a 'Fine pastry, a blend of fresh cream and fromage blanc, finely sliced onions, bacon cubes, all cooked in a very hot wood fired oven.'  The six of us ate six of them, and since three of us were rather small, I think the adults may have had to shoulder a greater burden.  It is a good thing they were delicious.

Flammekuche or tarte flambee is a specialty of the Alsace region

After lunch we took a city tour by canal boat.  We each had our own audio guide and there were even special kid friendly ones in several languages.  The snow was melting on the glass of the boat, so pictures from it didn't turn out that well and of course there was too much information that I don't remember any of it, but it was a good tour and well worth it.  

It was easier to see out of the boat than this picture suggests, but pictures didn't come out well. 

After the tour, we revisited our favorite sites on foot.  Here is the family waiting to watch the next tour boat go through the locks.  Please note the really cool head sock that Debora and Neils are wearing. 

This is a view of the Petite France area of town taken from one of the many bridges that cross the canals.  

No trip to France would be complete without croissants and we picked some up for a late dinner when we returned home.

On Sunday we woke up to about 10cm of snow on the ground.  It had snowed on Saturday and more during the night.  This was an unusually early snow and there were warnings on the radio suggesting that people avoid the woods because since the leaves were still on the trees, they were holding on to more snow, and therefore were heavier than they would be with the same level of snow fall later in the year.  It was partly this and partly my love of chocolate factories that helped me decide on the city tour rather than the nature tour for Sunday's itinerary.  The snow over the beautiful fall colors was a sight I had never seen before and was quite stunning.  The roads were all clear and we had no problems traveling between cities.

The fall colors under the frosting of snow make for a spectacular view.  

Our first stop was the Ritter-Sport factory in Waldenbuch.  I had always assumed that Ritter and Sport were two different people who teamed up to make chocolate, but you know that assume means.  Ritter was a guy who liked chocolate before it was popular and set out to change that.  His major inovation was to change the shape of the bar.  Long skinny bars break in gentlemen's pockets when they are going to or doing sporty things and everyone knows that a broken chocolate bar is just no good.  Ritter worked out that using the same amount of chocolate, but putting it in a square shape, would allow sports men to have their chocolate unbroken until the fateful moment when they broke it on purpose.  So the Sport part of Ritter-Sport refers to the shape.  It seemed to me that they pretty much had squares on the brain as you can see in the picture of the head quarters building.  They even had an entire art gallery devoted to pictures of squares (we didn't go in).

The headquarters and factory for the Ritter Sport chocolate company.

During the war, chocolate was hard to come by, so they turned to different sweets like Fondant-Praline shown on the left.  They also worked out how to make filled chocolate to stretch the chocolate they had farther.  

The company has a good relationship with the cocoa farmers and has improved working conditions for them.  They had a very good video and Alette arranged for the English version of it to be shown between regular movie show times just for me.  The best part of the museum was the gift shop and like the Jelly Belly factory, they have their own equivalent of the 'belly flop' chocolate that are perfectly fine for eating, but are missing something (like they didn't fill completely) or were miss labeled or were otherwise not for retail sale.  I think I walked out of there with 4 kilos of chocolate, including a meter of minis, which I wish had more variety, but the concept is still very cool.

Artsy shot on our way to the next stop on the tour.  

After lunch at the factory we went to a Hundretwasser house in Plochingen. I had seen other things by this guy in Vienna and I appreciate public art with a sense of humor and I like colorful houses and outside decorations so it was a good stop.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensreich_Hundertwasser

Hundretwasser the architect, designed this apartment building in southwest Germany.

Our last major stop for the day was the town of Esslingen, which has more of the typical half timbered architecture and quaint streets and buildings.  We got there just in time to hear the glockenspiel play at 3pm, which was cool.  We walked around the town and through the church and then up to the fortress above the town which was interesting because we climbed another seemingly endless stair case which was built into the wall of the fort and in one straight line, so you could see how far you had come and how much farther you needed to go.

The old part of town, Esslingen, Germany

Public art. (-:

The view of the town from the top of the fortress.

From there we dropped Alette off at the train station to go to a conference and then I was dropped off at the airport for an evening flight back to istanbul.  It was a lovely trip, with many components and just the right amount of seeing, doing and being.  If I keep up the pattern and visit again in 4 years, Debora will be a teenager, Niels will be in middle school and Soren will be 9.  Crazy.  I am very grateful to have friends all over the world who open their houses and their lives for me to invade for a few days.