a very old iron workshop found in Turkey

Damn it to hell. You don't declare "oldest" anything without throwing out a number, even if it's pulled out of your ass. Bronze Age is kinda sketchy. I want a number estimate. Anyway, the "oldest iron workshop found" in Turkey:

ÇORUM - Anatolia News Agency

The world's oldest iron workshop has been uncovered during excavations in the central Black Sea province of Çorum and archaeologists hope the find will draw tourists to the region, the dig's leader said yesterday.

The workshop, dating back to the Bronze Age, was found in Alacahöyük, Ankara University Archaeologist Aykut Çınaroğlu, told the Anatolia news agency.

�Besides the iron workshop, some ceramic and stone pieces, as well as ornaments, were also among the findings, which reveal evidence regarding the daily lives of the Hittites,� he said, adding around 100 pieces were unearthed as part of the excavations.

In previous years, archaeologists have found a dagger with a golden handle in a prince and princess' graves at the same site, Çınaroğlu said.

The findings were handed over to the Çorum Museum, he said, adding archaeologists have restored some of the findings and displayed them for public viewing in an old museum building, located on the excavation site.

The Culture and Tourism Ministry is also planning to use king graves found in the region for tourism, a plan they call the "Alacahöyük King Graves Revival Project."

All infrastructure work for the project has been completed and awaits the ministry's approval.

�If the fund is allocated for the project, we can kick off the implementation of the project with the opening of the next excavation season. Our aim is to promote Alacahöyük, an important center for the Hittite and Hatti civilizations of (the) Bronze Age period, for culture tourism,� Çınaroğlu said.

The project is the first of its kind in Turkey and the first to display six Hatti graves in a glass bell, together with skeletons and grave gifts.

Pamuk lecture in Portland, OR

Just read the notes on the Pamuk lecture in Portland, Oregon by James Tata.

The fact that he's distanced himself from the American Congress statement on the nearly century old Armenian genocide, saying that it's an internal matter is only slightly disappointing. Turkey is under enormous strain right not. Turkish troops entering northern Iraq, into Kurdish controlled regions, are going to cause even more strain between American and Turkish relations. As much as i loathe to say it, i'm not sure that making this an issue at this moment in history in Congress of all the times it has been and will be possible is all that wise. Bush might actually be right.

(I can be convinced otherwise though.)

As an American, my favorite Pamuk book is The Black Book, not Snow, and oddly, i believe that prefer the Guneli Gup translation to the Maureen Freely one.

Want to know a dirty little secret of mine? Of Pamuk's greatest novelists, Tolstoy, Mann, Dostoevsky, and Proust, i have read only Dostoevsky, and of him, only Notes from Underground and The Idiot. I barely remember either one, as those were in my chemical years.

8,000 year old embracing couple found in Turkey

So there is now a new "oldest couple embracing" record in finding an 8,000 year old couple embracing in a newly unearthed tomb in Turkey. There might be more to the story than that. The article mentions that the previous couple that dates to 5,000 years ago were discovered in Verona, Italy.

This far, far predates the Etruscan questions, but there does seem to be some cultural connection between Anatolia and and Tuscany, as well as the concrete examples of a genetic one. Maybe it goes even further back than suspected. I'm wondering if these burial ritual were not isolated incidents, but some tiny fragments of a nearly obliterated tradition.

The House of Silence

This story about Pamuk's The House of Silence being translated into Russian popped up. It is Pamuk's first book. It's described at length in this review of The White Castle from 1991. So now it's in translation in Russian, French, and Spanish.

Is it any great demand to ask for it in English?

spirals & Çatalhöyük migration

Only 5% of Çatalhöyük has been excavated? I had no idea it was so little. I like this research hoping to uncover human migration routes via the characteristic art motif of the settlement.

Interview with Elif Shafak in the Independent.

Honestly, i have yet to read any of her work. I beat myself up trying to track down The Bastard of Istanbul, but it's been sitting in the TBR stacks, unread, for months.

sin of solitude

Antidisingenuousmentarianism has a comment on the Orhan Pamuk bit on Turkish street food in the New Yorker.

The ad that Pamuk describes reminds me a little of the ad campaign by Hebrew National for kosher hot dogs right before July 4th. Those parachuting cows sound awesome.

(As someone who frequents New Orleans though, i must admit that i never ate a Lucky Dog.)

Damn it. I don't even know a place where i can pick up the New Yorker around here.

Somehow Pamuk turns a piece on simple junk food craving into a meditation on the curse of isolation. I love that lonely bastard.

Hrat Dink murder trial begins Monday, July 2nd

This story on the trial of the murder of Hrant Dink is depressing. Much evidence, including video from security cameras near the crime scene, has disappeared. The alleged gang ties seems to be true as well.

more on Turkish literature and Article 301

I was reading the list of Most Anticipated Books of 2007 from the Boston Globe , only to run across another Turkish book that i forgot was coming out, Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul. Actually, i don't think it comes out in March. Amazon has it listed as released January 18th, and i could swear that i shelved this book in the past two weeks. (I was in a hurry, and don't examine closely every book i shelve.) When i turn in Tales from the Town of Widows today, i'll see if it's there.

I'm curious as to how big the subplot about the Armenian genocide is. In comparison, i noticed in just the first chapter, Livaneli made a reference to it. He doesn't call it genocide explicitly, but it's hard to miss:

The old farmhouse, which was large enough to accommodate all the members of the family, had originally belonged to an Armenian named Johannes, who was remembered affectionately by the villagers for his willingness to lend a helping hand. One day soldiers had come and ordered all the Armenians to collect whatever belongings they could carry and assemble on the outskirts of the village. Frightened and weeping, the Armenians obeyed and were led off, casting backward glances as they trudged away from the village. Not one of them returned. According to rumor, the soldiers had taken them to a distant land, yet nobody dared to say this aloud. Some of the Armenians had entrusted their valuables to their Muslim neighbors, hoping to come back to retrieve them. Decades has passed, and no one had ever returned.

I guess that it's okay to write about the deportations, and the ultranationalists charging people under Article 301 only react when the killings are explicitly acknowledged.

Pamuk edits the Turkish newspaper Radikal for a day

The Guardian article calls Radikal, "a major Turkish newspaper." This CBC news article says, "While Radikal has a circulation of only about 30,000, it is a highly regarded political paper," and notes that its regular editor-in-chief Ismet Berkan had similar charges to Pamuk brought against him last year. The paper was devoted to free expression of artists and acknowledged a 1951 article denouncing the poet Nazim Hikmet. He offered himself as scapegoat for anything in the paper that the readers took offense to, and directed any praise to the regular staff of Radikal.

I wonder if he's going to get into trouble again?