animalia

Towards the center of a fine zoological mosaic, I spied my favourite of favourites: the fierce Little Owl, Athene noctua.

little stones

The combination of black and white tiles remind me of the cobblestones of Lisbon...

volubilis

The remains of the ancient city of Volubilis lie scattered within the agricultural patches of land outside Meknès. Founded in the 3rd century BCE, it was once a Mauritanian capital before becoming Roman. Volubilis boasts some of the finest mosaics I have seen in situ, with many depicting scenes from mythology, animals, and abstract patterns.

zellij

Chellah's examples of zellij, or glazed terracotta tile work, are mostly crumbling away on weathered orange stones, but the portal of the ruined mosque and its stunning minaret make it easy to imagine how splendid the structure must have been.

There was also some lovely mosaic work in the ruins of Roman buildings:

on hold

I know I've been absent for a long time, and the story of The Great Anatolian Road Trip is no longer current, but it has been a very busy twenty-five days. I spent two marvellous weeks in Portugal with family, then returned to a maelstrom of laundry, preparation for the new school year, and work for an upcoming exhibition. Yes, I will finally show my drawings again! I'll let you know more about it closer to the time, but for now, Harika is on hold, and I hope that continuing the tales of my adventures in Eastern Anatolia at a later date will not affect the story at all.

Here's a preview of the sketch I did of the famed "Gypsy Girl" at the Gaziantep Zeugma Mosaic Museum:



If I can get through the next two weeks efficiently, I might be able to start posting again. Until then, enjoy the end of your summer!

dove love

Call the bird a dove, and everyone loves it. Call the bird a pigeon, and suddenly the poor thing is a "flying rat." Well, not in my presence! I have a deep appreciation for every member of the dove family, including our humble pigeons, otherwise known as Rock Doves.



To celebrate the recent return of YouTube in Turkey (yay!), here's a terrible video of the old news story of a Turkish truck driver who refused to continue his route upon discovering a dove had laid her eggs in a nest she built upon his truck. The man would not move his truck until the baby birds hatched and fledged. Love for doves is a big thing here in Turkey, where it's not uncommon to see a rooftop coop of fancy pigeons carefully tended to by a burly man with a cigarette dangling out from under his moustache— and behold:



Some ancient artist in Zeugma felt the need to include this little pidge in a mosaic.

little stones, and a farewell to old friends

The Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep is simply stunning— if you ever find yourself in Antep, have a baklava, then visit the museum. The floors and walls are covered in massive, detailed mosaics of mythological figures, animals, and colourful geometric patterns. I imagine the feet that walked on these works of art, the cool stones smooth under toes and heels— these masterpieces which once decorated the villas of the elite of Zeugma. Zeugma was an Ancient Greek (then Roman) city on the Euphrates, an important stopover on the Silk Road.



Who arranged these millions of tiny little stones? I get goosebumps when I think of ancient artists; people whose names and identities have been lost to time, people who worked tirelessly in collaboration or alone to create beauty that has lasted centuries— millennia, even. I like to think of their hands. Their sketches and rough drafts. Their patience.

In her own private room, the museum's most celebrated mosaic is illuminated by a spotlight in pitch-dark:



Zeugma's "Gypsy Girl" stares back at us just as she did so many years ago when her artist first laid down the siennas, umbers, and salmon pinks of her eyes. A student of mine, passionate about art and wildly curious, asked me "of all the faces here, why is hers so special that it deserves its own room?"

Is it the delicate changes in values and colours? The highlights in her irises? That one white stone on her bottom right (our left) eyelid that gives it a sense of wetness? Is it the way she stares straight at us, seemingly right into us?

"Well, why do you think she's special or unique?" I asked, in my Ms. Zaza voice.
"Oh I don't know," she sighed, "she's just so beautiful..."



While selecting the photos for this post, I came across this one and thought I'd include it, though it has little to do with what I've written about above. I know it sounds silly, but I have a thing for shoes— and I don't mean an obsession or anything like that (though Pedro might say I'm in denial on this), but I have a hard time getting rid of shoes. My shoes have memories; they've taken me places and I've experienced things in them. I remember getting this pair of Converse for Christmas one year, and I remember switching out the laces to black shortly after (the shoes faded to a brownish-grey, but the laces remained as black as ever). I rode ferries in them, climbed rocks in them, their soles met the soil of several countries, and withstood monsoons. They carried me through Antep and made it to Istanbul Atatürk Airport, where they finally peeled so badly apart, it was certain that this was their last adventure and they would be of no use to anyone.

little pieces of stone

I did little reading about Antakya before I hopped on the plane, but the one thing I did discover during a lazy internet search, is that the city has a to-die-for collection of mosaics from the region. The Hatay Archaeological Museum is home to some of the most stunning mosaics I have ever seen, which date back to somewhere between the second and fifth centuries CE. What was once walked upon, is now displayed on clean, white walls for us to behold as the great works of art that they are. Between the groups of awestruck, murmuring tourists, hangs a great sense of calm— the quiet, light-filled rooms leave you space to meditate on the faces of gods, nymphs, and people long passed.



Such expression, captured in little pieces of stone.