Finishing Sinop: Museums and Today

Sinop Museum is a much bigger and richer museum than Samsun Museum (the previous city I visited, but didn’t get to writing about it yet.) This is interesting because Samsun is a much bigger city today than Sinop, but it looks like in the past it was the other way around. Although I should add that by “big” I don’t mean really big. Samsun Museum was basically one large room. Sinop Museum at least has sections. It is built right next to Serapis Sanctuary ruins; the sanctuary is in the large courtyard that surrounds the museum.
Serapis Sanctuary Ruins	From the icon collection	In the courtyard I found another kind of “mingling”: a mingling of artifacts that carried me through time. Any museum has many artifacts from many different periods of time, and the difference in this courtyard is how they stand next to each other like neighbors: the fact that there were no chains between me and them, that I could touch them and the way they occupy the open space freely made them almost feel like people, as if all had a pair (maybe many pairs) of eyes staring at you through time. Living happily ever after here in the courtyard and quietly watching the modern city grow around them. The mosaics were leaning against any
wall they could find: since we have way too many things to exhibit than we have space for, many either lie on the ground or lean against a wall like these mosaics. The Serapis Sanctuary (3rd century BC) is neighboring an old Ottoman graveyard, or most probably the tombstones were carried here from their original spot (I wouldn’t want to be lying in one of those graves if they did so.) Serapis was “invented” by Egyptians as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians, which makes me smile as in this part of the world, the richness and variety of many cultures caused many “unification” attempts, as well as
Bones of Sinop Battle soldiers under the white mausoleum many wars. Here in this tiny city on the Black Sea shore, Serapis sanctuary is sitting side by side with artifacts from Neolithic Period, with Romans, unidentified and lonely tombs, some identifiable Ottoman tombstones, with the bones of some 4,000 Ottoman navy soldiers who were killed in the Battle of Sinop in 1853 and some current day “museum ducks.” I saw chickens being raised in the courtyards of Sinop Prison too. This is new to me; it must be some kind of a new trend. In addition to the ducks (which are not wildly walking around cities in Turkey like the ones in Boston) there were chickens and other similar birds in cages here in Sinop Museum courtyard. One fine scene was one of these birds eating a neighboring bird that unluckily decided to visit from the next cage.
Sinop Museum ducks
Past and the present
Lonely tomb
Inside the museum building there were many other tombstones, this time from the Classic, Hellenistic and Roman periods. Collected from Sinop and its surroundings many findings belonged to the old Bronze Age, Hittite, Phrygian, Archaic, the Roman and Byzantine periods (dating from 3000 BC - 1453 AD.) One gallery was filled with Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman treasures. Another one was filled with a rich Byzantine icon collection. There was a room where the numerous amphoras were exhibited. Amphoras are clay vases with two handles and they were used to	Tombstone	Beautiful mosaics also inside the museum
Part of the amphora collection transport both dry and liquid products, usually via boats and hence most of them were found in the sea. Some had a seal on one handle depicting the city the goods were produced. I was sad to see that the museum marked them on their side, directly on the clay, with black permanent marker. An interesting piece was a messed up looking amphora. The tag said it was over-fired. It sure looked over fired (comparing the colors with the other amphora’s)
but the way it was smashed together did not look like overheat to me. As a potter I myself smash a bad piece right out of the wheel like that, while it is still wet. Yet it wouldn’t survive all these years if it wasn’t fired and who would fire a messed up piece at that time? Maybe there was one visionary potter who was planting the seeds of conceptual art back then.
The kiln model	Stacking cups for the dome	They excavated a kiln that was used to fire the amphoras and looking at its plan they made a model of it. As a potter I liked seeing the way they stacked fired small cups to make the “dome” of the kiln.
	Rock-cut tombs	In many sites in this region there are numerous rock-cut tombs where wealthy people were buried. I haven’t seen one yet, although in the photos they look spectacular. It is very hard, if not impossible to reach them without a car (which I don’t have) and I never know if it is possible to climb up to the grave to be inside of it. What is the use of struggling that much to reach there if I won’t be able to get inside the actual chambers? So I didn’t even attempt to visit them, although I was attracted to them immensely. I heard that in a village in Samsun there were five other graves and my next stop will be that village. Hoping that it would be possible to get in them.
Sinop Ethnography Museum is a couple blocks away that exhibit how people lived in this region in a closer time in history. It is a historic building belonging to some rich person in the 18th century. The interior was renovated and walls were elaborately painted. Every room showed a scene from traditional scenes/lives of the people.
The first one to capture my attention was the textile production room. Textiles have been produced here for a very long time. Some “weights” that were used in the weaving were found in Samsun Ikiztepe were dated 3000 BC. I got myself a small purse that was locally woven here in Sinop and knowing the ancient weaving tradition makes it extra special.
The room with the old couple in it was almost exactly like the living room of my great-grandmother. The village where my mother and my mother are from is not in this Northeastern part of Turkey, but it seems the fabric, the seating design and the small “table” where she’s sitting are all shared traditions. That seating compound/couch is made of hay-stuffed “pillows” and they are very hard, far from comfortable. The dark fabric on the wall/pillow (under the
handmade ornate white one) is exactly the same as my great grandmothers. That small table in the middle is actually made of a wooden leg/support which is separate from the top. The top is a round tray. In the old days the villagers did not use tables. That big fabric would be put on the floor, than the wooden small legs, than a giant round tray with food on it and everyone would sit around the tray to eat, putting the fabric on their laps. My mother continued this tradition in midday meals, minus the legs though. She used to put the tray right on the fabric and we would sit and eat on the floor.
It’s interesting that she always thought most of the traditional “village” ways were backwards and not modern, but this small tradition was stuck with her. I was deeply affected to see this room: if you take the old man out (my great grandmother’s husband was killed when they were newly married), seat the old woman on the couch right in the middle and add a window behind her, it would be exactly the room I spent a summer in with my great grandmother and her son and his daughters way back when I was 8 years old.
Those shoes are called “takunya” in Turkish and they are especially for wearing in “hamam”s, or Turkish baths. This pair is special (hand made with all the intricate silver decorations): the groom’s family, together with a bunch of other gifts, gives them to the bride. Many diverse cultures in Turkey have their own elaborate wedding traditions where at each step of the several ceremonies certain gifts are (and must be) exchanged between bride and groom’s family. I even received a pair of these “takunya”s before, together with a silver bowl (to be used to pour water in a
Boyabat houses Turkish bath) and a rug (again to sit on in a Turkish bath.) At age 19, my first boyfriend’s family brought me this “Turkish Bath Set” when they came to officially ask the permission of my family to marry their son. This is the first step and if the girl’s family approves, the “word” is given between two families and the couple start wearing rings. The engagement and wedding come after this. I wore that ring for a couple of years and luckily didn’t get married to by first boyfriend.
At the basement of the museum house there was a photography exhibition of Boyabat (one of the towns in Sinop) houses: apparently they represent the old traditional regional architecture and are appreciated in this way. What struck me was the hopelessness in this appreciation: the writing on the wall read: “We know and very sad by the fact that, these houses will not be able to survive the ruthlessness of unplanned urbanization and they will be replaced by cement houses in the future. These beautiful houses that represent our culture and architecture will then only live in these photographs. Signed by the Museum Management.”	Old houses of Sinop
Nostalgia of the living way before it is dead. This feels to me as a yearning for future nostalgia, foreseeing a loss and instead of any action to prevent the loss, giving up from the beginning. I am not that naïve not to know how strong the mafia is in these matters of “building modern malls” and all, and how very difficult, if not impossible to win against them, and I still think that it all lies in the change in awareness: being aware of what we are and of this immense culture and history. As long as we don’t own our past as a part of our Turkish identity, we will only act like a little child and complain and cry about this.
SINOP TODAY
Sinop is an interesting city because a good part of it is on the peninsula: wherever you turn your head you see the Black Sea. It felt to me that it was trying to be a more “western” style vacation point, with its boat tours, seashore shops and many hotels inviting especially the Turkish tourists to spend their vacation here. Usually the Western and Mediterranean coast of Turkey are the most popular vacation places, and Sinop is a drop on the Northern coast that is trying to bring the similar type of air in the area. Many old houses still stand. My Turkish and American selves are in dispute here also: My American self would like to see these old houses renovated: all painted new and all. My Turkish self feels their oldness and brokenness is the real beauty.  That sign; “Makarna kesilir (Handmade pasta service)” warmed my heart. This was on the window of a yarn shop and like many Turkish women the owner of this shop must be very skillful in preparing food for the winter. Women prepare big amounts of tomato paste, various dried vegetables/fruits, pickles, handmade pasta etc. at the end of the summer for their own use.
It requires a good deal of experience, so this woman is offering her service for any household to go make their pasta for use in the coming winter. We used to do it too in the good old days: we used to make two kinds of paste (tomato and red pepper), tarhana (a dried soup mixture), pickles and olives.