Ubaidian and Tell Halaf

However, to return to Mallowan’s sounding, which was now passing through the ’Ubaidian and Tell Halaf levels; the area was becoming increasingly restricted. By the time, Mallowan had come to the crucial last stage, where he could hope to excavate the levels underlying the earliest Tell Halaf occupation, he could not hope for finds on a large scale. Nevertheless, with the shaft reduced in dimensions to approximately eight feet square, his reward was by no means negligible.

From pavements directly above virgin soil,

he recovered a basketful of potsherds, ornamented with curious incised designs.

This pottery came appropriately to be known as “Ninevite One”: and for the ten

years which followed, these few sherds remained the only existing clue to the

pre Halaf occupation of Mesopotamia.

In 1942, an inspector of the Iraq

Antiquities Department, who was assisting Land Settlement officers in the

agricultural areas southwest of Mosul, sent into headquarters some bags of

surface pottery from mounds which he had found in that area. Examining one of

these, my Arab colleague, Fuad Safar and I were astonished to find that it

contained almost exclusively Ninevite I pottery far more, in fact, than had

been found by Mallowan at Nineveh itself.

Twenty miles from Mosul

They came from a mound called Hassuna, some twenty miles from Mosul, and understandably only a few days elapsed before an opportunity was found for us to visit it. The most intimidating aspect of the place proved to be its remote situation, on the extreme edge of the cultivated country west of the Tigris, with nothing beyond but the desolate Jasirah Desert, stretching away towards Hatra and the Dantesque landscape of the Wadi Tharthar. Nevertheless, there was a tiny village, and nearby, at the junction of two dry river beds, a small mound hardly more than fifteen feet high and a hundred yards in diameter.

Also the surface pottery appeared to be

Ninevite I, with a large number of interesting variations. So no doubt remained

that the site must be excavated. By the early spring of that year, we had

organized an expedition and were living in a tent camp on the site.

The excavation at Hassuna is one, which

will always remain in my memory, as distinguished by two unusual features. One

was the extreme demands which it made on one’s ingenuity as an excavator; the

other the disconcerting insecurity of our living conditions. The village itself

seemed to be outside the jurisdiction of the nearest police post: and beyond it

was a tribal area that no one within living memory had ever attempted to

administer.

Imaginary Restoration

Only a few stones remained in place to suggest the shape of the latter: but a minute examination and recording of these enabled us to reconstruct the “portico” feature, which appears in our subsequent restoration. As for the temple itself by which the whole structure was crowned, no evidence of its shape remained. For the purpose of imaginary restoration we were compelled to fall back on the known appearance of the contemporary Painted Temple at ’Uqair.

Since this framework of speculation

regarding the raison deter of such isolated temple mounds has departed rather

far from the subject of excavating technique, it may be interesting as a

postscript to reflect on the frustration which Campbell Thompson must have felt

in his attempts to probe the secrets of so characteristic a Mesopotamian mound.

His previous experience had been largely in Britain. His method of approach

therefore, was to cover the site with small trial holes, seldom much more than

two yards square. These were indeed excavated with extreme care, as one gathers

from his report, in which he meticulously records, with sketches, the depth

beneath the surface and character of each sherd or email object found.

Nevertheless, one sees now that this

process could have been prolonged almost indefinitely without any prospect

whatever of coming to understand the anatomy of the mound. Nor, for that

matter, does it seem likely that any textbook rule of procedure, which is today

available, would have been over much help to a prospective excavator at a site

of this sort. In our own case, flexibility of procedure and an understanding of

what Campbell Thompson called “dissolved mud brick” were perhaps the two

factors, which contributed most to the success of our operation.

North Iraq Prehistoric Mounds

During the greater part of the two previous

chapters, our subject has been confined to the excavation of mounds in

Mesopotamia: and this country must still occupy us a little longer. The quest

for early civilizations, which we have been unconsciously following, since it

ran parallel to the evolution of an excavating technique, may now be pursued

one stage further by turning our attention northwards towards the undulating

hill country, which was once Assyria. This will still serve our primary

purpose, because northern Iraq is outside the limits of the alluvial plain and

excavating conditions are a little different from those in the south.

Istiklal Street and Taksim Square

Istiklal Street

Istiklal Caddesi is the main street of Beyoglu (Pera) and is a pedestrian area. The street that used to be called “Grand-Rue de Pera” during its bright times, was a modem meeting point by the beginning of the 20^th century, during the best times (“Belle e’poque”) of Istanbul.

The cultural and social activities for different tastes as well as the cafes, cinemas, bookshops, restaurants, bars come out of istiklal Caddesi or the streets it has connection. There are many shops on the street.

At the south end of the street is the entrance of Tunel. Tunel is an underground railway system that is 570m, from 1875 extending to Galata Bridge and is the second underground of the world in terms of construction date after that of London. While walking towards Taksim, after passing Galatasaray Lisesi, you will see (Jigek Pasaji (Cite de Pera) on the left hand side.

As its Turkish name implies it used to be a passage that flowers were sold; today has many cheerful bars and ‘meyhane’s. It’s an ideal atmosphere to eat, to drink Turkish Raki and to feel Beyoglu. Balik Pazari is worth to see just next to the passage. Although it is prefered for finding fresh fish, you can explore the shops that you can find kind of meat, cheese, desserts, pickles, almost anything you can buy as you walk further Beyoglu.

Taksim Square

Taksim square is one of the important centres of this multi-centred city. After Pera became popular and crowded the new type of urbanization moved to Nisantasi and Sisli neighbourhood; thus, Taksim has become an important centre. It was a cemetery area until the end of 19™ century. There was a large barrack in the middle of the square and the biggest football field in the city used to be in this barracks.

Taksim had become the most important square of the city during the years when the Republic was founded. It was the most expensive residential area in 1950s. The name of the square is Taksim due to the water coming from Belgrat Ormanlan used to distributed here in 18®1 century. The cistern, made by Mahmut U in 1732, is still at the entrance of Istiklal Caddesi. At the southwest of the square is the monumental statue of Taksim Cumhuriyet Aniti showing the founder of Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey and his friends, made by the Italian artist Canonica in 1928.

500 years of Ottoman Cuisim

Marianna Yerasimos

Otoman Cuisine with the mixture of modem recipes, reminding us the tastes which are almost desappeared.

99 recipes of Ottoman cuisine took place in the book Author Marianna Yerasimos’s 1,5 years work of modernizing the recipes gave its results.

It’s not only the recipes you’ll be reading in the book but also nutrition habits, how to behaved while eating and more to explore.

Source: https://www.ensartourguide.com/istiklal-street-taksim-square/

Flinders Petrie

But it was of course the Director himself

whose inexhaustible energy and multifarious talents animated the whole

undertaking. The fact is that Woolley, like Flinders Petrie and others,

belonged to a generation of archaeologists whose individual genius kept them

withdrawn from any confidential relationship with their staff. To his

assistants he deputed specific work and himself inspired sufficient loyalty to

ensure that it was carried out to the limits of their ability.

But the purpose and progress of his operations

and the sequence of conclusions to which it led, were seldom discussed with

them. It was in fact not unusual, after an excavation was over, for his junior

assistants to read with interest in the newspapers the details of discoveries

in which they themselves had presumably taken part. This was the case, for

instance, with the attribution of certain rifled tombs to the Second Dynasty

kings of Ur, on whose identity Woolley had apparently remained undecided until

the season’s digging was finished. In these days, when the secondary function

of a field director is to train younger archaeologists, this form of reticence

would have the most obvious disadvantages.

Also, it is hardly surprising that his

conclusions were occasionally wrong. To recollect that his dating of the Royal

Tombs now proves to have been approximately five hundred years too early is

perhaps to be “wise after the event”, since his interpretation of the available

evidence has been corrected by more recent discoveries. But undoubtedly certain

theories which he devised, mainly for purposes of publicity, required the most

tortuous arguments to justify them. One remembers for instance, how, in his

soundings, clay deposits which appeared out of context in relation to the

Flood, became “quays for shipping.” And soon, in the press Ur became the

“Venice of the Ancient East.”

Deductive reasoning

But here again, on the serious scientific

side, nothing could detract from the almost intuitive logic which distinguished

Woolley’s deductive

reasoning. As Sir Mortimer Wheeler has understandingly

observed quite recently, “The confident but always acutely experimental

intelligence underlying the remarkable discoveries which again and again

advertised his achievements was too often of a kind that escaped the easy

comprehension of his cloistered critics.

In this unimportant sense he suffered from

success.”1 In the polemical phraseology which has sometimes been used to point

a contrast between the shortcomings of old fashioned archaeology and the newly

perfected academic discipline, Woolley’s work has tended to be included by

implication in the general target for categorical disparagement. Posthumous

testimonials like that quoted above must be treated as a welcome corrective.

Bulgaria Vacations

Khans, Tzars, Orpheus, Spartacus, Thracians, Levski, Botev … All of them start with capital ‘B’ for Bulgaria. These are also the places that you can see on your Bulgaria vacations.

Bulgaria is the Thracians – great warriors and horsemen that were feared and outsiders respected them. It is also the country of accomplished artists and farmers who grew wealthy from trading jewelry, copper and gold. Their fierce weaponry is in archaeological museums around the country. Anyone who likes to see it, can do it there. Many tombs, discovered mainly in central Bulgaria – the region of Kazanlak and Shipka, reveal the Thracians’ rituals, their beliefs. A gold mask and a bronze head of a Thracian King have been found there.

Interesting Bulgaria

Places to see and things to do on Bulgaria vacations are waiting you to discover them. These are Rila Mountain that gave home to the Rila Monastery, the magnificent holy cloister, unity of spirituality, culture and nature. Then Rupite – a source of energy. Also the medieval archaeological complex Perperikon – the ancient monumental megalithic structures. Certainly the ‘Kukeri’ Festival – costumed men who perform rituals intending to scare the evil away and to announce the coming of spring. Another one is Nestinarstvo – a fire ritual that barefoot men and women (nestinari) perform on zharava (smouldering embers)… Visit Bulgaria and experience these places and take more mystical Bulgaria tours!

Bulgaria vacations in the sea of events, Golden times Bulgaria Vacations
Yes, good foundations had been laid. Time for the invaders and conquerors. First the Greeks, followed by the Scythians. Then the Romans, Byzantines and the Turks. (Istanbul guided tours) Nobody had ever spared Bulgaria. All of them left their indelible marks on the lands of that country. For us, the successors, to see, learn and know our Bulgaria travel experience.

The above text has been copied from www.enmarbg.com. ; For the rest of the story you can visit link Bulgaria Vacations.

Megiddo in Palestine

A photograph taken while this operation was in progress has some technical interest, because it was taken with a camera suspended from an ordinary kite. I had at the time recently visited the Oriental Institute excavations at Megiddo in Palestine, and watched the process of taking air photographs from a stationary kite balloon.

But it seemed to me, both that the

apparatus involved in this experiment must be extremely expensive and that a

lot of unnecessary time was wasted on the operation. My own attempt to simplify

the process was surprisingly successful. I used two six foot naval kites,

flying in tandem, and suspended beneath them a cheap camera with an automatic

release and swivels for retaining it in a vertical position. Admittedly this

was no more than a rough and ready way of getting low air verticals; but out of

some scores of pictures which were taken in this way, a dozen or so proved

extremely revealing and useful.

One could, for instance, recover quite

large sections of the ancient town plan, by photographing the unexcavated

surface of the mound after rain; for the tops of the walls were found to dry

and change colour much more rapidly than the filling in between, (PL. IS)

But, while still engaged in recording the

Abu Temple at Tell Asmar, I had at the same time become involved in what proved

to be a much more frustrating operation. Eshnunna, which is the ancient name of

Tell Asmar, had been an important city state during the Isin Larsa dynasty at

the beginning of the second millennium B.C; and we were also excavating a

complex of public buildings belonging to that period, known by the name of its

original founder, Gimil Sin.

Here, as so often happens in Mesopotamia,

the chronology of the stratified remains presented very little difficulty,

because the buildings at successive structural periods were constructed partly

of kiln baked bricks stamped with apictograph inscription bearing the name of

the prince who had rebuilt it.

Not only was his name given, but very often

also that of his father and son; so that a genealogical table was comparatively

easy to establish. But another element in these texts proved more puzzling. It

wTas the repeated references to another and evidently much larger temple

dedicated to Tishpak, the patron god of

Eshnunna. This seemed, (like the Marduk

Temple at Babylon, for instance), to have been the most important building in

the city.

Understanding of ancient materials

In theory, these could not fail to locate

any conspicuous architectural remains. However, today, with labor costs

enormously increased, they would be prohibitively expensive and involve a great

deal of work, which would be likely to prove pointlessly repetitive.

The truth is that the disposal of trial

excavations, their area and shape, can only be determined by practical

considerations, depending on inferences made from the conformation of the mound

itself. In addition, the nature of these can only be adequately explained by

citing a variety of practical examples, as it is intended to do in the pages,

which follow.

However, for the moment it may be well to

return to the subject of wall tracing and the understanding of ancient

materials.

In the very early stages of community life

in the Near East, walls were often built of pies, which is the equivalent of

the South American term, adobe; that is, simple clay mixed with straw and built

up in convenient lumps or slabs. After this came the almost universal use of

sun dried mud bricks, prismatic in shape but of widely varying dimensions. Mud

brick, as is now generally known, is made with the aid of a four-sided wooden

mound, having no top or bottom.

Into this, the tempered clay is dumped and

the surplus normally smoothed off with the side of the hand. The mound is then

lifted and the brick left to dry in the sun. It is this concluding process,

which sets a geographical limit to countries in which mud bricks can be used,

since cloudless skies and hot sunshine are indispensable to their manufacture.

In almost all countries of the Near East such conditions are favorable during

at least a part of the year, and up to comparatively recent times, kiln baked

bricks have consequently been considered a luxury.

It is for this reason that today, in those

countries, a proper understanding of the nature and uses of this material,

particularly in Iraq, has become as indispensable to a twentieth century

excavator as it was to the architects of antiquity. In neighboring countries where

stone is available, a wall may have stone foundations or even be built up to a

height of several feet in stone before the brick begins. In Anatolia

particularly, the structure above this may be a framework of wooden beams,

forming panels, which are filled with mud brick. In all cases the wall is

finished inside and out with a plastering of mud and straw. Outside at least,

this has to be renewed every year.

Mound at Khorsabad

This building, on its platform, accounts for the main mound at Khorsabad on the summit of which we lived. Smaller mounds covering the ruins of the gateways and the line of the city walls themselves can be seen spreading out into the cultivated plain on either side. It was one of these gateways No. 7 in the plan made by Botta’s successor, Victor Place, in which we started excavating in 1930.1

C1) This is now incorporated in the

American expedition’s fine perspective reconstruction of the whole palace

setting. G. loud. Khorscbad. VoL II. Frontispiece.

(2) Reproduced in G. Loud. Khorsabad. VoL L

Chicago 1936. Fig. L

We pegged out a careful trench across one

side of the little hill, and, as might have been expected, dug for several days

without finding anything at all.

Pierre Delougaz

At about that date our party was joined by Mr. Pierre Delougaz, who is now Curator of the Oriental Institute Museum, and afterwards it was not difficult to discern that his arrival marked the beginning of our seven years experimenting and discovery in the realm of excavating technique. In fact, so much of the effective work referred to in the remainder of this chapter must be credited to Delougaz’ insight and initiative, that it may be well here to explain his presence at that time in Iraq.

In the previous winter of 1927/28,

Breasted’s Iraq Expedition had suffered what could be regarded as an

unfortunate false start, in that Dr. Edward Chiera, who had been in charge of

it, had unhappily died almost before it had time to get under way. Chiera

himself had at first concentrated on the Khorsabad palace.

He had arrived to find the site pillaged

and neglected, with everywhere signs of the looting and destruction which had

continued throughout the long aftermath of Botta’s and Place’s excavations. The

place had to all intents and purposes become a stone quarry, from which the

sculptured slabs were extracted to be broken up and burnt into lime for local

building purposes.

There was then a village on the summit of

the main mound, and he noticed in the courtyard of the local agha’s house a

fine bearded head of one of King Sargon’s officials, retained as a curiosity

and now being used as a chopping block for wood. The sight of such vandalism

was as Chiera with remarkable restraint observed in his report  “irritating to say the least”, and he spent

the remainder of his first season in effecting such rescue work as he could

manage; packing and removing the surviving slab fragments in several of the

principal chambers, (PL. 9).

This in the end involved him in what proved

to be an almost embarrassing discovery the broken pieces of one of the largest

portal sculptures of all— a winged bull from the entry to Sargon’s throne room,

which now stands in the Oriental Institute Museum.

Certain rich man

I heard of a certain rich man, who was as

notorious for parsimony as Hatim Tai for liberality. His external form was

adorned with wealth, but the meanness of his disposition was so radiated, that

he never gave even a loaf of bread to any one: he would not have bestowed a

scrap on the cat of Abu Horiera, nor thrown a bone to the dog of companions of

the cave. In short, no one ever saw his door open nor his table spread. A

Durwesh never knew his victuals, excepting by the smell; no bird ever picked up

any crumbs that fell from his table. I heard that he was sailing on the

Mediterranean Sea towards Egypt, with all the pride of Pharaoh in his

imagination, according to the word of God, ‘Until the time that he was

drowned.’ Suddenly a contrary wind assailed the ship, in the manner as they

have said, ‘What can the heart do that it may not record with your sorrowful disposition;

the north wind is not always favourable for the ship.’ He lifted up the hands

of imploration, and uttered ineffectual lamentations. God hath said, ‘“When you

embark on ships offer up your prayers unto the Lord.’

Of what benefit will it be to the servant

in the time of need, to lift up his hands in imploration, which are extended

during prayers, but when any favour is wanted are folded under his arms?

‘Bestow comfort on others with silver and gold, and from thence derive also

benefit yourself. Know thou, that this edifice of yours will remain, use

therefore bricks of gold and bricks of silver.’

They have related, that he had poor

relations in Egypt, who were enriched with the remainder of his wealth. At his

death they rent their old garments and made up silks and damask. In that same

week I saw one of them riding a fleet horse, with an angelic youth running

after him. I said, “Alas if the dead man should return amongst his tribe and

relations, the heirs would feel more sorrow in restoring him his estate than

they suffered on account of his death.” On the strength of the acquaintance

which had formerly subsisted between us, I pulled his sleeve, and said, “Enjoy

thou, 0 good man of happy endowments, that wealth which the late possessor

accumulated to no purpose.”

Certain rich man

I heard of a certain rich man, who was as

notorious for parsimony as Hatim Tai for liberality. His external form was

adorned with wealth, but the meanness of his disposition was so radiated, that

he never gave even a loaf of bread to any one: he would not have bestowed a

scrap on the cat of Abu Horiera, nor thrown a bone to the dog of companions of

the cave. In short, no one ever saw his door open nor his table spread. A

Durwesh never knew his victuals, excepting by the smell; no bird ever picked up

any crumbs that fell from his table. I heard that he was sailing on the

Mediterranean Sea towards Egypt, with all the pride of Pharaoh in his

imagination, according to the word of God, ‘Until the time that he was

drowned.’ Suddenly a contrary wind assailed the ship, in the manner as they

have said, ‘What can the heart do that it may not record with your sorrowful disposition;

the north wind is not always favourable for the ship.’ He lifted up the hands

of imploration, and uttered ineffectual lamentations. God hath said, ‘“When you

embark on ships offer up your prayers unto the Lord.’

Of what benefit will it be to the servant

in the time of need, to lift up his hands in imploration, which are extended

during prayers, but when any favour is wanted are folded under his arms?

‘Bestow comfort on others with silver and gold, and from thence derive also

benefit yourself. Know thou, that this edifice of yours will remain, use

therefore bricks of gold and bricks of silver.’

They have related, that he had poor

relations in Egypt, who were enriched with the remainder of his wealth. At his

death they rent their old garments and made up silks and damask. In that same

week I saw one of them riding a fleet horse, with an angelic youth running

after him. I said, “Alas if the dead man should return amongst his tribe and

relations, the heirs would feel more sorrow in restoring him his estate than

they suffered on account of his death.” On the strength of the acquaintance

which had formerly subsisted between us, I pulled his sleeve, and said, “Enjoy

thou, 0 good man of happy endowments, that wealth which the late possessor

accumulated to no purpose.”

Romania Clayton

Thomas J. Clayton who visited many

countries passed through Bulgaria also. Going from Varna to Ruse and then on to

Romania

Clayton was “surprised” to discover that both Bulgaria and

Romania were “such fertile countries.” He wrote that he “never saw better

pasture lands or wheat fields” anywhere else in the world. These lands reminded

him of the prairie lands of Illinois. He was also surprised to find that there

were no farm houses like in America. The lands, he stated, were “tilled by

peasants who live in miserable little huts, or in villagesOur route lay through

a spur of the Balkan Mountains and was very picturesque very beautiful and

entertainingThe scenery of these mountains is soft and has a soothing rather

than a stirring influence upon the beholder.” The author believed that if peace

prevailed in these parts of the world, Bulgaria and Romania “will soon become

rich and prosperous.”

There are few more accounts by Americans on

Bulgaria. However, they are not much more different than those presented. Many

a time what Americans said about the Bulgarians or for that matter about other

peoples, reflected on their own personal character or how they valued American

culture and way of life. The descriptions presented by these travelers on a

variety of topics, like national character and even the history of Bulgaria are

hardly scientific or correct accounts.

Bulgarian personality

Almost all of these travelers present

nothing but clichés. They did not have the necessary expertise to carefully

analyze the Bulgarian

personality, their ethnic typicalness in terms of common

national cultural values. The frame of reference these travelers used was

founded on their perspective of American history and culture as the

repositories of values of liberty, freedom, democracy, justice, religion,

discipline, industry and progress.

Almost all of the authors sympathized with

the plight of the Bulgarian people under Ottoman domination. They all condemned

the alien system of despotism and many a time showed their preference for

republicanism. The Ottoman system did not permit the development of the

individual, the arts and crafts as well as agriculture and industry. The

authors were aware that the Ottoman state was in its stages of disintegration.

Those who visited Bulgaria before 1878 believed that the Bulgarians would

become free and those who travelled after the liberation of the country praised

the attempts of the Bulgarians to preserve their independence.

Process Mesopotamia

We must now consider more closely the

manner in which these artificial hills come to be created. Any of the mounds

which we have mentioned in the preceding paragraphs would probably serve to

illustrate the broad lines of this process: but those in Mesopotamia will

perhaps serve our purpose best, since they are uncomplicated by the presence of

large stone buildings and at the same time provide examples of some anatomical

eccentricities seldom found elsewhere. This process, then, by which in

antiquity the repeated rebuilding’s of human habitations on a single site

created a perpetually increasing elevation, is by no means difficult to

understand.

The average life of a mud brick building

today seldom exceeds the span of a single generation: and in earlier times,

military conquest or localized raiding on a smaller scale would certainly have

accounted for demolitions that are more frequent. Roofs would be burnt or

collapse and the upper parts of the walls subside, filling the rooms to about a

third of their height with brick debris. Before rebuilding, the site would

usually be systematically levelled, the stumps of the old walls being used as

foundations for the new.

Prehistoric fortresses at Mersin

Thus, after a time, the town or village

would find itself occupying the summit of a rising eminence; a situation, which

had the double advantage of being easily defensible and of affording an

expansive view of the surrounding countryside. One remembers in a connection

how the walls of the little prehistoric fortresses at Mersin in Cilicia were

lined with identical small dwellings for the garrison; and each was provided

with a pair of slit openings from which a watch could be kept on the approaches

to the mound.

What, then, an excavator is concerned with

is the stratified accumulation of archaeological remains, unconsciously created

by the activities of these early builders. By reversing the process and

examining each successive phase of occupation, from the latest (and therefore

uppermost) downwards, he obtains a chronological cross section of the mound’s history,

and can, if circumstances are favorable, reconstruct a remarkably clear picture

of the cultural and political vicissitudes through which its occupants have

passed.

However, it must be remembered that the

procedure, which he adopts, itself involves a new form of demolition. For as

the architectural remains associated with each phase of occupation are cleared,

examined and recorded, they must in turn be removed in order to attend to the

phase beneath. In a Near Eastern mound, the product of an operation of this

sort is often a deep hole in the ground and very little else that could

interest a subsequent visitor to the site of the excavation.

Museum of Pennsylvania

This road of course prolonged itself

through the Taurus passes, where the mounds are rare. However, once the

Anatolian plateau is reached, they start again and increase in size at the

approach to the great cities of Phrygia. The crossing of the Sangarius River is

marked by a colossal mound representing the remains of the old Phrygian

capital, Gordion, and a wide area around it is studded with tumuli covering the

graves of the Phrygian kings.

Excavations by the University Museum of

Pennsylvania in the side of the hill have revealed a gigantic stone gateway,

from which travelers on the Royal Road must have set out on their journey

northward. Half a mile further on, a stretch of the road itself is exposed,

where it passes between the tumuli; and its fifteen foot width of stone

pavement is still perfectly preserved.

(1) A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains.

(2) Published in “Iraq”,

(3) Happening to visit the excavations when

this section of the road had just been located. I found the pavement newly

cleared and, standing in the center of it, the American director, a volume of

Herodotus in his hand, from which he was declaiming the passage in praise of

the Persian couriers who carried the royal dispatches from Sardis to Susa.

Anatolia or Kurdistan

However, it is not only on great highways

of this sort that the purpose of mounds can be identified. In every major

highland valley of Anatolia or Kurdistan, there, probably at a river crossing

or road junction, is a substantial mound; the market town or administrative center

of an agricultural district, which may still be crowned by the ruined castle of

a feudal landlord—the “derebey” of Ottoman times. Scattered elsewhere over the

face of the valley are smaller mounds, which were mere villages or farmsteads.

There are mounds making obvious frontier

posts, and lines of mounds sketching in the communications, which served

military defense systems of the remote past: and there are skeins of more

recent defenses, like the fortresses of Diocletian’s Hines.1 and finally, there

are tiny, insignificant looking mounds standing no more than a few feet above

the level of the plain. In addition, sometimes these prove to be the most

important of all: for they have not been occupied for many thousands of years,

and the relics of their prehistoric occupants lie directly beneath the surface.

Future of Bulgaria

The majority of Americans who wrote on

Bulgaria or visited the country showed energy, curiosity, sense of wonder, and

faith in the future of Bulgaria and mankind even when they

were disappointed in some particular aspect of their travel experience. They considered

knowledge, and their travel experiences important, their individual responses

and reactions significant and worth preserving. Although they were usually

unfamiliar with the Bulgarian language, history and customs, their comments on

the Bulgarian character were generally positive.

It was difficult for the American traveler,

who knew little about the country, to come to terms with the complex cultural

milieu of Bulgarians, Greeks, Turks, etc. and to resolve the difference

sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant between the Balkan mind cushioned on a

multi-layered rich past and a modern American mind formed in the New World free

from the burden of the past.  The

Bulgarians, busy with their struggle to free themselves and maintain their

independence, thought little about and did even less to attract tourists.

For the American tourists the Balkans were

on the periphery of their travel plans. Most of those who visited the country

went there as passers-by and caught only a glimpse of Bulgaria. Bulgaria in the

view of the American traveler was either a peasant society or a society in

transition with many Oriental traits still present. The Bulgarians were

described as simple, natural, methodological, disciplined, and diligent. There

were, of course, some descriptions which were tendentious and even misleading.

The Orthodox Church was criticized, in part, in the belief that this would make

Americans come to the support of the American missionaries working in Bulgaria.

However, the commentaries of these pioneer

American travelers are not without merit. Through sharing their travel

experiences with their countrymen, the American travelers contributed toward

making Bulgaria known to Americans. Although most of the descriptions were

brief, they nonetheless were good enough to create an image of a country with a

long history, a relatively heroic past and a people struggling to free itself,

and modernize its country.

Fourteenth century caravanserai

As a result, the actual level of occupation

remains precisely where it was six centuries ago. Seeking a full contrast in

regional conditions, my mind turns to mediaeval Baghdad. There, in 19411 was

concerned with the repair and restoration of a magnificent fourteenth century

caravanserai in the center of the town. Inside the building, occupational

debris had accumulated until only the tops of the main arches were any longer

visible; and this had to be removed before it could again be put into use.

When the task was finished the fine

proportions of the vaulted hall became apparent; but the pavement upon which

one stood was now found to be exactly nine feet beneath the level of the street

outside, and a stairway had to be built in order to reach it.

In a town built largely of mud brick and

subjected during the past centuries to a series of appalling political and

natural disasters, the level of habitation had risen at the rate of eighteen

inches per hundred years. So here at once is a first clue to the regional

character of mound formation; two central factors which have been conducive to

their creation in the countries of the Near East.

One is the almost universal employment in

those countries of sun-dried brick as a building material; the other,

historical insecurity, coupled with the extraordinary conservatism, which makes

eastern peoples, cling tenaciously to a site once occupied by their ancestors

and obstinately return to it however often they are ejected.

Visit to Egypt

It is interesting to recollect that even

Herodotus, during his visit to Egypt, was already able to observe a

phenomen22on caused by the accumulation of occupational debris in an Egyptian

city, though his conclusion regarding its explanation was understandably at

fault. In his description of Bubastis he says—“The temple stands in the middle

of the city, and is visible on all sides as one walks round it; for as the city

has been raised up by embankment, while the temple has been left untouched in

its original condition, you look down upon it whosesoever you are.

“I In fact, as one sees today at Luxor and

elsewhere, the temples, with their massive stone walls and pillars, have mostly

survived at the original level of their foundation. while the surrounding

dwelling houses and other buildings of the city, whose mud and reed walls have

continually been demolished and renewed, rose gradually above them, leaving

them in a deep hollow, like the Forum of Trajan at Rome.

Country west of Mosul

To confirm this, it may be interesting to

quote at random the reactions of a nineteenth century traveler to the

appearance of the country west of Mosul, during a journey in the spring 1840.

Sir Henry Layard had reached the market town called Tell Afar on his way to the

Sin jar Hills, and he describes his surroundings as follows “Towards evening I

ascended the mound and visited the castle….

From the walls, I had an uninterrupted view

of a vast plain, stretching westward towards the Euphrates, and losing itself

in the hazy distance. The ruins of ancient towns and villages arose on all

sides; and as the sun went down, I counted above one hundred mounds, throwing

their dark and lengthening shadows across the plain. These were the ruins of

Assyrian civilization and prosperity. Centuries have elapsed since a settled

population dwelt in this district of Mesopotamia.

Now, not even the tent of a Bedouin could

be seen. “I Layard was of course wrong in thinking only of the Assyrian nation;

for many of the mounds he was looking at were in fact occupied as early as the

sixth millennium B.C. However, he did not exaggerate their number. During a

survey in 1937, I myself recorded the surface pottery from seventy-five mounds

in that area, and these were only a few selected sites, which I could easily

reach by car during a short three weeks reconnaissance.2

However, apart from the close concentration

of mounds in certain areas of this sort, the pattern, which they make, is often

worth observing. AH over Iraq, and for that matter in neighboring countries, a

glance at the disposal of mounds in a landscape will often reveal to one in the

lividest possible manner some aspect of historical geography, whether political

or economic.

Royal Road

The city of Erbil, for instance, (PL. I)

stands within its fortress walls on a mound whose height almost justifies its

local reputation as the “oldest city in the world”: and from its rooftops, over

the undulating plain to the Zaab river crossings.

Which led to Nineveh and the north, one

sees a line of smaller mounds, pointing the exact direction of the age old

caravan route, which the Achaemenian Persians, coming from Susa, prolonged as

far as their new capital at Sardis. They called it the Royal Road, though it

had existed for several thousand years before their time. Wherever it crossed a

wade and there was a source of water, there also, today, there is a mound; and

villages, which make convenient stopping places on the modem motoring road,

crown many of them.

Certain characteristics

Interesting as this illustration is of how

strati graphical formations can be created, this early mention of Egypt must

serve as an occasion to introduce certain reservations regarding that country,

in relation to the subject under discussion. For it should be said at once that

Egypt has certain characteristics which make it less suitable than others do

for the study of mounds.

This is perhaps partly to be attributed to

the abundant supply and general use of building stone, which greatly prolonged

the survival of Egyptian buildings. But it is also partly due to the fact that,

in the narrow valley of Upper Egypt, land is too valuable to allow large ruin

fields of brick buildings to remain derelict; and the fellahin have long since

discovered that the occupational debris with which such ruins are Hide, when

spread over their fields, makes the finest fertilizer available.

Burin any case, those who have approached

the subject of Egyptology will know that archaeology in Egypt, when it took the

form of actual excavation, has always been concerned almost exclusively with

stone temples, tombs and cemeteries. Mounds in Egypt are confined for the most

part to the Delta of the Nile; and, with so much else to attend to, their

excavation has till now been very considerably neglected.

So let us glance once again at the pattern

of countries in which mounds are everywhere found and have been more generally

excavated. From Egypt they spread northward through the Levant and westward

through Anatolia to the Balkans. Eastward they follow the curve of Breasted’s

“crescent” through the rich farmlands in the foothills of the Armenian

mountains to Iraq and Persia and so, southward of the Elburz range, to

Afghanistan and the Indus valley.

Mesopotamia

But the focal point of the whole area,

where mounds are so plentiful that they become the most characteristic feature

of the landscape, is the twin river valley of Mesopotamia which is in fact not

a valley at all but a vast province of partially irrigated alluvial desert. It

is a habit of thought to apply the name Mesopotamia to this basin of alluvium,

which represents half of modem Iraq. But it has come to be known to our own

generation that the first human settlers in this province, the ancestors of the

later Sumerians, were themselves comparative latecomers, and that the

undulating hill country of northern Iraq had a much earlier record of Neolithic

farming communities.

This may help to explain the impression,

which has grown upon one, after long periods of travel in those parts, that the

Assyrian uplands around Mosul and their westward extension through the valleys

of the Khabur and Balik rivers into North Syria must have been the most thickly

populated area of the completely ancient world. Certainly today, they are more

thickly studded with ancient mounds than any other part of the Near East.

Bulgarian Language

The majority of Americans who wrote on

Bulgaria or visited the country showed energy, curiosity, sense of wonder, and

faith in the future of Bulgaria and mankind even when they were disappointed in

some particular aspect of their travel experience. They considered knowledge,

and their travel experiences important, their individual responses and

reactions significant and worth preserving. Although they were usually

unfamiliar with the Bulgarian language, history and customs, their

comments on the Bulgarian character were generally positive.

It was difficult for the American traveler,

who knew little about the country, to come to terms with the complex cultural

milieu of Bulgarians, Greeks, Turks, etc. and to resolve the difference

sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant between the Balkan mind cushioned on a

multi-layered rich past and a modern American mind formed in the New World free

from the burden of the past.  The

Bulgarians, busy with their struggle to free themselves and maintain their

independence, thought little about and did even less to attract tourists.

American tourists in Balkans

For the American tourists the Balkans were

on the periphery of their travel plans. Most of those who visited the country

went there as passers-by and caught only a glimpse of Bulgaria. Bulgaria in the

view of the American traveler was either a peasant society or a society in

transition with many Oriental traits still present.

The Bulgarians were described as simple,

natural, methodological, disciplined, and diligent. There were, of course, some

descriptions which were tendentious and even misleading. The Orthodox Church

was criticized, in part, in the belief that this would make Americans come to

the support of the American missionaries working in Bulgaria.

However, the commentaries of these pioneer

American travelers are not without merit. Through sharing their travel

experiences with their countrymen, the American travelers contributed toward

making Bulgaria known to Americans. Although most of the descriptions were brief,

they nonetheless were good enough to create an image of a country with a long

history, a relatively heroic past and a people struggling to free itself, and

modernize its country.

Archaeological monument

An alternative situation arises, when an

important building or civic lay out is encountered, of the sort which may

afterwards need to be preserved as an archaeological monument. In this case,

the excavation will merely be extended to cover as much as is required of the

stratum concerned, and if a strati graphical sounding to a greater depth is

required, it will be made elsewhere.

However, to return to the creation and

development of mounds themselves, it would be a mistake to think that the

process is always as simple and straightforward as that already described. A

wide variety of circumstances may serve to disrupt their symmetry and

complicate their stratification.

For instance, the diminishing living space

at the summit or a sudden increase in the settlement’s population may cause the

focus of occupation to move away from its original center. In order to make

this clear, we may at this point enumerate some of the principal variations of

the theme of anatomical development, which are to be found, particularly in

Mesopotamian mounds.

Orthodox sequence

As a point of departure then, let us take

the orthodox sequence of developments illustrated in the upper part of Fig. 1.

This diagram represents the habitation of a village community with a static

population. The superimposed remains of five principal occupations have

gradually created a small artificial hill: but as the site of the village rose

in level, the building space on the summit became more and more restricted by

the sloping sides of the mound.

It may well have been for this reason that

the place was eventually abandoned. In any case, after the inhabitants of the

fifth settlement had departed, the ruins of their houses were molded by the

weather to form the peak of a symmetrical tumulus. Vegetation started to grow

upon it, and soon all traces of occupation had disappeared beneath a shallow

mantle of humus soil.

The second and third diagrams in Fig. I

both illustrate cases where the focus of occupation has shifted. The former

represents a phenomenon, which we shall later have an opportunity of studying

in detail at a particular site tell Hassuna in northern Iraq, which will

provide a perfect example.

I in the diagram, after five principal

periods of occupation, a small mound has been formed in a maimed exactly

similar to that in the previous instance. However, from this point onwards,

occupation has continued, not on the summit of the mound, since that had become

inadequate, but terraced into its sloping flank and spreading over an extended

area of new ground beneath.

Anti Russian and pro German

He was surprised to see in the Eiffel

Restaurant the waiters “puffed tobacco smoke as they took the guests’ orders,

and reclined at full length on a bench in the lull of business.” He tried to

explain this by making a sarcastic comment that democracy seemed to have made

some headway since the liberation of the country. However, the author liked the

friendliness and great hospitality of the Bulgarian people he met along the

Danube.

Bigelow was anti-Russian and pro-German.

He was very critical of Russia’s policy in Bulgaria and thought that Germany

ought to have the final say in Southeastern Europe. He attempted to explain

Bulgarian politics by quoting an unnamed Bulgarian diplomat critical of Russian

policy toward his country, and hoping that not the Russian Tsar but the German

Emperor would become the “Protector of the Danube.”

James M. Buckley travelled through Bulgaria

in 1888. He believed that each traveler saw “what he took with him,” and for

this reason he thought that his experiences were worth recording because

“several views are more illuminating than one.” In his books Travels in Three

Continents: Europe, Africa, Asia he described his trip through Eastern Rumelia

and Bulgaria.

 “The

view as we rode along was wonderfully beautiful. Villages and towns are far

apart, and one might easily have fancied himself travelling through a

succession of parks connected with some ancestral estate, his only perplexity

that he saw no house or castle, and few persons.” He was impressed by the

“immense masses of granite” that surround and underlie Plovdiv. He praised the

political “independent existence” of Eastern Rumelia which gave “it much more

interest to Western travelers than would have if still a province of Turkey.”

Bulgarian Orthodox Church

He took part in a convention in Sofia of

the Bulgarian Protestants and was impressed with their work. However, like

Mutchmore, he was very critical of the Bulgarian Orthodox

Church. In his view the Bulgarian Church “was a very low form of

Christianity,” for which the principles of the Gospel were “concealed under the

mask of superstitions; no intelligible instruction is given; pomp, ceremony,

priest craft, support the religion, which exerts little influence over the

daily lives of the people, and can afford little or no comfort in their

experience of privation and toil.”

Sofia, the capital city, did not impress

him much. Were it not for the palace, one or two elaborate hotels of an Eastern

style, and the Bulgarian letters on the signs, he wrote, it would be easy to

“mistake the place for an American prairie town already endeavoring to put on

the airs of a city.” He was more impressed by the fertility of the land, the

number of rivers which flew into the Danube and with the herds of cattle and

flocks of sheep. Many Bulgarians, he wrote, were very “striking-looking men.”

However, the general aspect of the country was “not one of prosperity, and a

primitive scene was that of buffaloes drawing carts.”

Spread of Civilization in Eastern India

Signs of Civilization

A region is considered to be civilized if

its people know the .art of writing, have a system for collecting taxes and

maintaining order, and possess social classes and specialists for performing

priestly, administrative and producing functions. Above all a civilized society

should be able to produce enough to support not only the actual producers

consisting of artisans and peasants but also consumers who are not engaged in

production. All these elements make for civilization. But they appear in a

large part of eastern India on a recognizable scale very late. Practically no

written records are found in the greater portions of eastern Madhya.

Pradesh and the adjoining areas of Orissa,

of West Bengal, of Bangladesh and of Assam till the middle of the fourth century

A.D The period from the fourth to the seventh century is remarkable for the

diffusion of an advanced rural economy, formation of state systems and

delineation of social classes in eastern Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, eastern Bengal

and southeast Bengal, and Assam, This is indicated by the distribution of a

good number of inscriptions in these areas in Gupta times Many inscriptions

dated in the Gupta era are found in these areas.

They are generally in the form of land

grants made by feudatory princes and others for religious purposes to Buddhists

and brahmanas and also to Vaishnavite temples and Buddhist monasteries. These

beneficiaries played an important role in spreading and strengthening elements

of danced culture the process can be understood by attempting a region wise

survey.

Orissa and Eastern and Southern Madhya Pradesh

Kalinga or the coastal Orissa, south of the

Mahanadi, leapt into importance under Asoka, but a strong state was founded in

that area only m the first century B. C. Its ruler Kharavela advanced as far as

Magadha. In the first and second centuries AD the ports of Orissa carried on

brisk trade m pearls, ivory and muslin.

Excavations at Sisupalgarh, the site of

Kalinganagari which was the capital of Kharavela at a distance of 60 km from Bhubaneswar,

have yielded several Roman objects indicating trade contacts with the Roman Empire.

But the greater part of Orissa, particularly northern, Orissa, neither

experienced state formation nor witnessed much commercial activity. In the

fourth century Kosala and Mahakantara figure in the list of conquests made by

Samudragupta. They covered parts of northern and western Orissa. From .the

second half of the fourth century to the sixth century several states were

formed in Orissa, and at least five of them can be clearly identified.

Religious purposes

For a century from A D 432-33 we notice a

series of land sale documents recorded on copperplates Pundravardhanabhukti,

which covered almost the whole of north Bengal, now mostly in Bangladesh, Most

land grants indicate that land was purchased with gold coins called dinara. But

once land was given for religious purposes, the dunes did

not have to pay any tax. The land transactions show the involvement of leading

scribes, merchants, artisans landed classes, etc.’., in local administration,

which was manned by the governors appointed by the Gupta emperors.

The land sale documents not only .indicate

the existence of different’ social groups and local functionaries but also shed

valuable light on the expansion of agriculture Mostly land purchased for

religious endowments is described as fallow, uncultivated, and therefore imitated

Without doubt the effect of the grants was to bring plots of land within the

purview of cultivation and settlement.

The deltaic portion of Bengal formed by the

Brahmaputra and called Samatata was made to acknowledge the authority of

Samudragupta It covered southeast Bengal. A portion of this territory may have

been populated and important enough to attract the attention of the Gupta

conqueror.

But possibly it was not ruled by brahmamsed

princes, and consequently it neither used Sanskrit nor adopted the varna

system, as was the case in north Bengal. From about A D. 525 the area came to

have a fairly organized state covering Samatata and a portion of Vanga which

lay on the western boundary of Samatata. It issued a good number of gold coins

in the second half of the sixth century.

Dacca area

In addition to this state, m the seventh

century we come across the state of the Khadgas, literally swordsmen, in the Dacca

area. We also notice the kingdom of a brahmana feudatory

called Lokanatha and that of the Rates, both in the Comilla area all these

princes of southeast and central Bengal issued land grants in the sixth and

seventh centuries.

Like the Orissa n kings they also created

agraharas. The land charters show cultivation of Sanskrit, leading to the use

of some sophisticated meters in the second half of the seventh century. At the

same time they attest the expansion of cultivation and rural settlements. A

fiscal and administrative unit called Daudabhukti was formed in the border

areas lying between Bengal and Orissa. Danda means punishment, and bhakti enjoyment.

Apparently the unit was created for taming and punishing the tribal inhabitants

of that region. It may have promoted Sanskrit and other elements of culture in

tribal areas.

Appeared in Prakrit

In the coastal Orissa writing was certainly

known from the third century B C., and inscriptions up to the middle of the

fourth century A. D. appeared in Prakrit. But from about A.D. 350 Sanskrit

began to be used. What is more significant, charters in this language appear

outside the coastal belt beyond the Mahanadi in the north.

Thus the art of writing and Sanskrit

language spread over a good portion of Orissa, and some of the finest Sanskrit

verses are found in the epigraphs of the period. Sanskrit served as the vehicle

of not only brahmanical religion and culture but also of property laws and

social regulations in new areas. Verses from the Puranas and Dharmasastras are

quoted in Sanskrit charters, and kings claim to be the preservers of the Varna

system. The affiliation of the people to the culture of the Gangetic basin is

emphasized. A dip in the Ganga at Prying at the confluence of the Ganga and the

Yamuna is considered holy, and victorious kings visit Pitaya

Bengal

As regards Bengal, portions of north Bengal,

now in Bogra district, give evidence of the prevalence of writing in the time

of Asoka. An inscription indicates several settlements maintaining a storehouse

filled with coins and food grains for the upkeep of Buddhist monks. Clearly the

local peasants were m a position to spare a part of their produce for paying

taxes and making gifts.

Further, people of this area knew Prakrit

and professed Buddhism, Similarly an inscription found in the coastal district

of Noakhali in southeast Bengal shows that people knew Prakrit and Brahmi

script in that area in the second century B.C. But for the greater part of

Bengal we do not hear anything till we come to the fourth .century A.D In about

the middle of the fourth century a king with the title of maharaja ruled in

Pokharna on the Damodara in Bankura district. He knew Sanskrit and was a

devotee of Vishnu, to whom he possibly granted a village.

The area lying between the Ganga and the

Brahmaputra now covering Bangladesh emerged as a settled and fairly Sanskrit educated

area in the fifth and sixth centuries The Gupta governors seem to have become

independent after about A.D. 550, and occupied north Bengal, a portion may have

been seized by the rulers of Kamarupa Local vassal princes called Samantha

maharajas had created their own administrative apparatus and built their

military organization consisting of horses, elephants and foot soldiers and

boats to fight their rivals and collect taxes from the local peasantry. By A.D.

600 the area came to be known as Gaudi with its independent state ruled by

Sasanka, the adversary of Harsha

Suburbs on the Bosporus

The time-tables of the steamers which ply

between the city and the suburbs on the Bosporus and

the Sea of Marmora, adopt “Turkish time,” and require you to convert the hour

indicated into the corresponding hour from the European or “Frank” standpoint;

and the same two-fold way of thinking on the subject is imposed upon all

persons having dealings with the Government and the native population in

general A similar diversity exists in regard to the length of the year. The

Turkish year consists of twelve lunar months, a thirteenth being added from

time to time to settle accounts with the sun. The question when Ramadan, the

month of fasting by day and of feasting at night begins, or when the festival

of Bagram commences is determined, at least formally, by the appearance of the

new moon, upon the testimony of two Moslem witnesses before a judge in any part

of the Empire.

Different localities

Thus these religious seasons might commence

on different days in different localities, the

moon not being visible in some places, on account of the state of the weather.

The formula in which the approach of these seasons is now announced to the

public, since the increase of astronomical knowledge in Turkish circles, is a

curious compromise between former uncertainty and actual assurance on that

point “Ramadan begins (say) on Tuesday next, provided the new moon is visible.

If not, the Fast will date from Wednesday.” Alongside the

Turkish mode of measuring the year, there

is the method introduced into the Roman world by Julius Caesar, the “Old

Style,” followed by Greeks and Armenians, and also the “New Style,” the mode of

reckoning inaugurated by Pope Gregory XIII., now thirteen days in advance of

the Julian calendar. Accordingly, to prevent mistakes in regard to a date,

letters and newspapers are often dated according to both styles.

With some the year begins in March, with

the advent of spring; with others it commences in September, when autumn

gathers in the fruits of the earth; others make January, in midwinter, their

starting- point The difference between the “Old Style” and the “New Style”

involves two celebrations, as a rule, of Easter, two observances of New Year’s Day,

while Christmas is celebrated three times, the Armenian Church having combined

the commemoration of that festival with the more ancient festival of the

Epiphany. For one section of the community, moreover, the day of rest is

Sunday, for another Saturday, for yet another the day of special religious

services is Friday.

Rule of Constantine

The very geography of the place offers a

wide outlook. As a part of his everyday experience, a resident of

Constantinople lives within sight of Europe and Asia. Every day of his life, he

sees the waterway that runs between the two great continents thronged with

vessels of every nation, hurrying to and fro to bring the ends of the earth

together. Then, how much human power has been enthroned here the dominion of

Byzantium for one thousand years; the rule of Constantine and his successors for

eleven centuries; the sway of the Ottoman Sultans through four hundred and

fifty years. If what we see ought to do with what we are, here is a mound in

which to fashion a large life. But Europe and Asia are present in more than

their physical aspects, or in long periods of their history. Their

civilizations also meet here.

On every side there is the pressure of a

dominant Oriental society and polity, with its theocratic government,

autocracy, the creed of Islam, polygamy, slavery, eunuchs, secluded and veiled

womanhood, men in long robes and turbans, sluggishness, repose, the speech of

Central Asia softened by the accents of Persia and Arabia, minarets, domes

surmounted by the Crescent, graceful but strange salutations, festivals which

celebrate events in a course of history not your own, and express joys which

have never gladdened your soul And mingling, but not blended, with this world

of Asiatic thought and sentiment and manner, is a European world, partly

native, partly foreign, with ideas of freedom, science, education, bustle,

various languages, railroads, tramways, ladies in the latest Parisian fashions,

church bells, the banner of the Cross, newspapers and periodicals from every

European and American capital, knitting scattered children to the life of their

fatherland.

Foreign communities in Istanbul

The members of the foreign communities in the

City of the Sultan do not forget the lands of their birth, or of their race and

allegiance. Though circumstances have carried them far from their native shores

and skies, physical separation does not sever them from the spirit of their

peoples. Nay, as if to make patriotic sentiment easier, foreigners are placed

under the peculiar arrangements embodied in what are termed the Capitulations,

whereby, in virtue of old treaties, they enjoy the privilege of living to a

great extent under the laws of their respective countries, with little

interference on the part of the Ottoman Government.

When your house is your castle, in the

sense that no Turkish policeman dares enter it without the authorization of

your Consulate or Embassy, when legal differences between yourself and your

fellow-countrymen are submitted to judges, and argued by barristers, bred in

the law which rules in your own land, when your church and school can be what

they are at home, and when you can forward your letters, not only to foreign

countries but even to some parts of the Turkish Empire, with a stamp bearing

the badge of your own Government, it is natural that European residents in

Constantinople should be able to preserve their special character, both after

living here for many years, and also from generation to generation.

Istanbul - European world

A Mohammedan polity is opposed to the

assimilation of strangers, unless the aliens become converts to Islam. Whatever

process of assimilation goes on in Constantinople appears in the slow changes

of the East towards some likeness to the West Otherwise, the European

world is as present to the view as the Asiatic, and together

they spread a wide vista before the mind.

Furthermore, what a broad outlook does the

heterogeneous population afford! Whether you walk the streets or stay at home,

on the mart of business, at all large social gatherings, in all public

enterprises, you deal with diverse nationalities and races. Everywhere and

always a cosmopolitan atmosphere pervades your life. One servant in your

household will be a Greek, another an Armenian, a third a German or an

Englishman. Your gardener is a Croat, as tender to flowers as he is fierce

against his foes. The boatmen of your cacique are Turks.

In building a house, the foundations are

excavated by Lazes; the quarrymen must be Croats; the masons and carpenters are

Greeks and Armenians; the hodmen, Kurds; the hamals, Turks; the plumbers,

Italians; the architect is an Englishman, American, or a foreigner of some

other kind; the glaziers must be Jews. Fourteen nationalities are represented

by the students and professors of an international college.

Pilgrimages comes round

When the season of pilgrimages comes round,

the streets are thronged by Tartars, Circassia’s, Persians, Turcoman, on their

way to Mecca and Medina, wild-looking fellows in rough but picturesque garb,

staring with the wonder and simplicity of children at the novelties they see,

purchasing trifles as though treasures, yet stopping to give altos to a beggar,

and groping for the higher life.

Nor is it only in great matters that this wideness of human life comes home to the mind in Constantinople. It is pressed upon the attention by the diversity that prevails, likewise, in matters of comparatively slight importance; in such an affair, for example, as the calculation of time. For some, the pivotal event of history is the birth of Christ; for others, it is the Flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina, and accordingly, two systems of the world’s chronology are in vogue.

One large part of the populations still adheres to the primitive idea that a new day commences at sunset, while another part of the community defers that event until the moment after midnight. Hence in your move-mints and engagements you have constantly to calculate the precise time of day according to both views upon the subject.

Gentleman from Istanbul

On the occasion of a visit to a Turkish

gentleman in his garden, it so happened that two of his

nieces, not knowing that any one was calling, came to greet their uncle.

Surprised at seeing a man with him, the young ladies started back, as gazelles

might start at the sight of a hunter. Their uncle, however, summoned them to

return, and with extreme courtesy introduced them to his visitor, with the

information that one of the young ladies could speak English. Conversation in

that language had not gone far, when another gentleman was announced. Instantly

the girls sprang to their feet and darted away as for dear life. “See,” said

the uncle in tones of mingled vexation and sorrow, “See what it is to be an

educated Turkish lady!”

A Turkish gentleman of high rank wishing

his daughters to enjoy the advantage of a European education, but anxious to

spare them as much as possible the chagrin and ennui of being educated above

the station of a Turkish lady, hoped to attain his object by having his girls

learn to speak French without being able to read in that language. Such

experiences are disheartening. But, as the pale flowers which come ere winter

has wholly gone herald the spring and foretell the glory of summer, so the

recent improvements in the lot of Turkish women, however slight they may appear

meantime, warrant the hope of further progress and final emancipation.

EPILOGUE

To live in Constantinople is to live in a

very wide world. The city, it is true, is not a seat of lofty intellectual

thought. Upon none of its hills have the Muses come to dwell. It is not a center

of literary activity; it is not a home of Art Here is no civic life to share,

no far-reaching public works of philanthropy to enlarge the heart, no

comprehensive national life to inspire patriotism, no common religious

institutions to awaken the sense of a vast brotherhood enfolded within the same

great and gracious heavens. If one is so inclined, it is easy for life here to

be exceedingly petty. And yet, it is certain that to live in Constantinople is

to live in a wide world. It is not for any lack of incentive that a resident

here fails “to think imperially” or to feel on an imperial scale.

When a man possessed by the genius of the

place quits the city to reside elsewhere, the horizon of his life contracts and

dwindles, as when a man descends from the wide views of a mountain peak to the

life pent within the walls of a valley. For nowhere else is the mind not only

confronted, but, if one may thus express it, assailed by so many varied

subjects demanding consideration, or the heart appealed to by so many interests

for its sympathy.

Spiritual guide

A pupil complained to his spiritual

guide of being much disturbed by impertinent visitors, who broke in

upon his valuable time, and he asked, How he could get rid of them? The

superior replied, “To such of them as are poor, lend money, and from those that

are rich ask something, when you may depend upon not seeing one of them again.”

If a beggar was the leader of the army of Islamism, the infidels would flee to

China through fear of his importunity.

Actions correspond

A lawyer said to his father, “Those fine

speeches of the declaimers make no impression on me, because 1 do not see that

their actions correspond with their precepts: they teach

people, to forsake the world, whilst themselves accumulate property. A wise

man, who preaches without practicing, will not impress others. That person is

wise who abstained from sin, not he who teaches well to others whilst himself committee

evil.

The wise man who indulges in sensual

gratifications, being himself bewildered, how can he guide others? ” The father

replied, “0 my son you ought not, merely from this vain opinion, to reject the

doctrines of the preacher, thus pursuing the paths of vanity, by imputing

errors to the learned; and whilst you are searching for an immaculate teacher,

are deprived of the benefits of learning; like the blind man, who one night

falling into the mud, cried out, ‘  Moslems bring a lamp to show me the way ? ’ An

impudent woman, who heard him, said, ‘You cannot see a lamp, what then can it

show you? ’

Moreover, the society of the preacher

resembles the shop of a trader, where, until you pay money, you cannot carry

away the goods; and here, unless you come with good inclination, you will not

derive any benefit. Listen to the discourse of the learned man with the utmost

attention, although his actions may not correspond with his doctrine. It is a

futile objection of gainsayers that, ‘How can he who is asleep awaken others? ’

It behooved a man to receive instruction, although the advice be written on a

wall.”

Certain holy man

A certain holy man having

quitted a monastery and the society of religious men, became a member of a

college. I asked, what was the difference between being a learned and a

religious man that could induce him to change his society? He replied, “The

devotee saves his own blanket out of the waves, and the learned man endeavors to

rescue others from drowning.”

Power of intoxication

A drunken man was sleeping on the highway,

overcome by the power of intoxication; a devotee

passed by, and beheld his condition with detestation. The young man lifted up

his head, and said, when you meet an inconsiderate person, pass him with kindness;

and when you see a sinner, conceal his crime and be compassionate. 0 thou, who

despisest my indiscretion, why dost thou not rather pity me? 0 holy man, avert

not thy face from a sinner, but regard him with benignity. If my manners are

unpolished, nevertheless behave yourself towards me with civility.”

Dispute Durwesh

A company of dissolute men came to dispute

with a Durwesh, and made use of improper expressions; at which being

offended, he went to his spiritual guide and complained of what had happened.

He replied, “0 my son, the habit of a Durwesh is the garment of resignation;

whoso ever weareth this garb and cannot support injuries, is an enemy to the

profession, and is not entitled to the dress. A great river is not made turbid

by a stone; the religious man who is hurt at injuries, is as yet but shallow

water. If any misfortune befilth you, bear with it, that by forgiving others

you may yourself obtain pardon. O my brother, seeing that we are at last to

return to earth, let us humble ourselves in ashes before we are changed into

dust.”

Bughdad

Attend to the following story. In the city of Bughdad there happened a contention between the Flag and the Curtain. The Flag, disgusted with the dust of the road and the fatigue of marching, said to the Curtain in displeasure, “You and myself are school-fellows, both servants of the Sultan’s court. I never enjoy a moment’s relaxation from business, being obliged to travel at all seasons ; you have not experienced the fatigue of marching, the danger of storming the fortress, the perils of the lesser, nor the inconveniences of whirlwinds and dust ; my foot is more forward in enterprise, why then is thy dignity greater than mine ?

You pass your time amongst youths beautiful as 1 he moon, and with virgins odoriferous as Jasmin; I am carried in the hands of menial S; reams, and travel with my feet in bands and my head agitated by the wind.” The Curtain replied, “My head is placed on the threshold, and not, like yours, raised up to the sky; whosoever through folly exalts his necklace, precipitates himself into distress.”

Necessary perform conditions

The following story will exemplify what has been said above:—A King, having some weighty affairs in agitation, made a vow that, in case of success, he would distribute a certain sum of money amongst men dedicated to religion. When, on his wish being accomplished, it was necessary to perform the conditions of his vow, he gave a purse of dimers to one of his favorite servants, to distribute amongst the Zahids. It was said that the youth was wise and prudent.

The whole day he wandered about, and at night, when he returned, he kissed the money, and laid it before the King, saying that he had not found any Zahids. The King replied, “What a story is this since I myself know four hundred Zahids in this city.” lie replied, “0 lord of the world those who are Zfihids will not accept of money, and they who take it are not Zahids.” The King laughed, and said to his courtiers, “So much as I want to favor this body of men, the worshippers of God, this saucy fellow thwarts my inclination, and he has justice on his side. If a Zahid accepts direms and dinars, you .must seek somewhere else for a religious man.”

Consecrated bread

They asked a certain wise man, what was his

opinion of consecrated bread? He replied, “If

they receive it in order to compose their minds and to promote their devotions,

it is lawful; but if they want nothing but bread, it is illegal. Men of piety

receive bread to enjoy religious retirement, but enter not into the cell of

devotion for the sake of obtaining bread.”

Durwesh

A Durwesh came to a place where the master of the house was of a hospitable disposition. The company consisted of persons of understanding and eloquence, who separately delivered a joke or pleasantry, in a manner becoming men of wit. The Durwesh having travelled over the desert, was fatigued, and had not eaten anything. One of the company observed to him merrily, that he also must say something.

The Durwesh replied, that he did not possess writ and eloquence like the rest, and neither being learned, he hoped they would be satisfied with his reciting a single distich. They one and all eagerly desired him to speak, when he said, “ I aiii a hungry man, in whom a table covered with food excites strong appetite, like a youth at the door of the female bath.” They all applauded, and ordered the table to be laid for him. The host said, “ 0 my friend, stop a little, as my servants are preparing some minced meat.” The Durwesh raised up his head, and said, “ Forbid them to put forced-meat on my table, for to the hungry, plain bread is a savory dish.”

Marriageable

A certain lawyer had a very ugly daughter

who was marriageable; but although he

offered a considerable dower and other valuables, no one was inclined to wed

her. Brocade and damask will appear disgusting on a bride who is ugly. In

short, through necessity, he married her to a blind man. It is said that, in

the same year there arrived from Ceylon a physician who could restore sight to

the blind. They asked the father, Why lie would not have his son-in-law cured? He

said, ‘‘ Bee: Use he was afraid that if lie should recover his sight, he would

divorce his wife. It is best that the husband of an ugly woman should be

blind.”

Conqueror of kingdoms

A certain King regarded with contempt the

society of Durweshcs; which one of them having the penetration to discover,

said, “O king in this world you have the advantages of us in external grandeur,

but with regard to the comforts of life we are your superiors : at the time of

death we shall be your equals ; and at the resurrection our state will be

preferable to yours ”

Although the conqueror of kingdoms enjoyed absolute sway at the same time that the Durwesh may be in want of bread, yet in that hour when both shall die, they will cany nothing with them but their winding-sheets. When you wish to make up your burthens for quitting this world, the state of the beggar will be preferable to that of the monarch. The Durwesh exhibits a patched garment and shaved hair, but in truth his heart is alive and his passions subdued. He is not a person that will advance his pretensions among mankind; and if men oppose his inclination, he will not engage in strife. If a mill-stone should roll down from a mountain, he has but little faith who gets out of the way of it.

The Durwcsh’s course of duty consists in invoking and praising God, in obeying and worshipping him in giving alms, in being content, in believing the unity of the Deity, and in reliance on God with patient resignation to His will. Whosoever is endowed with these qualities is a Durwesh indeed, although he be arrayed in a robe; and, on the contrary, an idle prater who neglects his prayers and is a slave to his passions, who turns day into night in sensual gratifications, and night into day in drowsy indolence, eating anything that falls in his way, and saying whatever comes uppermost, such an one is a profligate, although he wears nothing but a blanket. 0 thou, whose inward parts are void of piety and whose outside beareth the garb of hypocrisy, hang not a gorgeous curtain before the door of a house constructed of reeds.

LIVE STOCK

The rearing of live stock constitutes an

important branch of the rural economy of the country. However, as we have seen,

pastures and fallows tend to diminish, being replaced by more elaborate

cultivation. For this reason, while decreasing his pastures, the Bulgarian

farmer increases his forage by the cultivation of various crops, the duel of

which are vetch and lucem. The total area occupied by lucem, vetch and wild

millet was, in 1892,31,342 hectares, and in 1899 88,455*84 hectares. The

quantity of these forage plants grown has, therefore, tripled in seven years.

The Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture each year distributes gratis a large

quantity of lucem seed, and exempts from all taxes ground sown with lucem.

The following table gives some idea of the

live stock of

Bulgaria:

Animal. Number

in 1893.              Number in 1900.              Proportional differenco More.

Less.

1             Horses                  343,946                494,557                4378

p  I.C.

2             Mules                   8,264    8,887     756         II

3             Donkeys              81,610  107,098                31*23    99

4             Cattle                    1,425,781           1,596,267            ii*95       99

5             Buffalos               342,193               431,487                26a09    II

6             Sheep                   6,868,291            7,015,385            2*14      II

7             Goats                    1,263,772            1,405,190            II*I9       99

8             Pigs                        461,635               367,501                —           20.39

p,

9             Poultry                 3,426,637           4,751,751            38*86    99

Improvement of the different animals

The improvement of the different animals

is brought about by means of selection. Another system that obtains in Bulgaria

is crossing native breeds with the best breeds of other countries. To this end,

the Government seconds the efforts of permanent commissions in the provinces

and of the agricultural cooperative societies. There are in the Principality

five large State depots for stallions and a certain number of stations for

cattlebreeding, especially near the agricultural colleges of Sadovo

(Philippopolis) and Roustchouk. The Government awards prizes to the breeders

who specially distinguish themselves, and helps them in the purchase of

pedigree beasts for breeding purposes. Dairies, which play so important a part

in farm management, and which, though as yet only in their beginning in

Bulgaria, will certainly develop enormously, are the object of special

attentions on the part of the Government.

On the whole, the State agricultural

institutions are rapidly developing, and so are the agricultural enterprises

due to private initiative. A special section of the Ministry of Commerce and

Agriculture (created in 1894) is concerned with the superintendence of

everything relating to agriculture in the Principality. This section is

subdivided into other sections, occupied with the respective branches of

agriculture, viticulture, fruitgrowing, cattlebreeding, and beekeeping. The

whole country is divided into fortyfour agricultural districts, under the

management of agricultural inspectors. It is the duty of these inspectors to

see to the carrying out of the various agricultural laws (village police,

phylloxera, silkworms, eggs, etc.), and to promote useful knowledge of farm

management by organising lectures, demonstrations, etc.

Land devoted to agriculture

The land devoted to

agriculture, strictly so called, which as we have seen was in the

year 1899 about 2,046,791 hectares, added to that under other cultivation

(vineyards, rose gardens, orchards and meadows), gives a total of 2,520,401

hectares of productive land. The following table shows the uses to which it is

put:

2 Oleaginous plants        9,883     15,89139              6079     

3 Vegetables     10,333   32,94179              21879    tt

4 Other culinary plants  20,012   31,89237              59*36    tt

5 Forage              343,342                440,85920           2840      11

6 Vines 96,000   110,94287            15*56    11

7 Roses 4,352     5,09435                1704      *t

8 Orchards ..      2,158     5,16321                13924    i)

Total      1,680,927             2,520,401*00     49*94    tt

The annual yield of cereals is calculated

at 30,000,000 hectolitres in the following proportion:

Wheat                                  12,000,000          hectolitres.

Maize                                   7,000,000            99

Barley                                   5,000,000            99

Oats                                      2,500,000            99

Rye                                        3,000,000            99

Millet                                    300,000                99

Spelt                                     200,000                99

Total                                     30,000,000          99

As regards the quantity of its cereals,

Bulgaria occupies the tenth place after Sweden. As regards wheat and maize, it

occupies the eighth, as regards oats and rye, the tenth.

According to their fertility per head of

the population, the provinces of the Principality form three groups

(1)          14

hectolitres per head : Roustchouk, Varna, Bourgas, and Pleven.

(2)          11

hectolitres per head: StaraZagora, Timova, Shoumen, Vratza.

(3)          8

hectolitres per head: Kustendil, Philippopolis, Sofia, Vidin,

The primitive form of plough is still in

use. For some time past, however, modem agricultural implements which greatly

facilitate field labour have been introduced. The following table shows the

number of agricultural implements in use:

                Implements.      In 1897.                In

190s. Proportional increase or decrease.

1             Ploughs 365,877                391,225

+           6*92 percent.

2             Iron

Ploughs ..   32,399   38,923 +              20 „

3             Harrows               5,353     38,080 +              730

4             Drills      46           89

+       93

5             Reaping

Machines           731         1,385 + 86

6             Implements.

Threshing Machines       In 1897.

94           In

190s.

125 +    Proportions!

increase or decrease.

31 per cent.

7             Bolting

Machines             1,484     3,481 + 134         M

8             Winnowing

Machines 14,233      30,117 +              112         II

9             Mowers               1,748     3,318 + 87           II

zo           Haymakers         81           104

+    23           99

11           Watercarts         66           10,782

+              —           99

12           Crushing

Machines         80           207 +15875        99

Ministry of Commerce and Agriculture

The Ministry of Commerce

and Agriculture actively encourages the introduction of perfected

machines. Its efforts in this direction are seconded by the Bulgarian

Agricultural Bank and by the National Agricultural Society.