Now here was another amazing place and another place that seems to have seen its fair share of empires come and go. Although there is plenty of earlier history (including prehistoric relics) it seems the real starting point in Van is the 9th century BC when the Urartians established a state during the reign of Sardur I with what is now Van as its capital. The name Urartia is derived from Assyrian sources. It was the name given to the the kingdom by its Assyrian rivals to the south. There is some authority for the proposition that the name has something to do with Ararat. In the Book of Jeremiah Ararat appears as the name of a kingdom.
I have to mention at this point that Dr Rudiger Schliffke was the second Python nut I met on the trip. He was more a Life of Brian nut in fact. This little bit of information doesn't seem very important but we did have a giggle remembering parts of the film and as I write this every time that I see a reference to Assyria all I can think of is Mr Cheeky being crucified next to Brian asking him if anyone was coming to get him down. Mr Cheeky says that his brother would usually come for him: "Oh, yeah. My brother usually rescues me, if he can keep off the tail for more than twenty minutes. Huh. Randy little bugger... up and down like the Assyrian empire!"
Anyway, below is a picture of Van Kalesi founded by the original king Sardur I. The picture is so far as I am aware the only photograph I have ever had published. This was thanks to Jane Tetslaff who was (and may still be, for all I know) working for publishers Dorling Kindersley. Their book called "Castles" has my picture in it. I sold the worldwide publishing rights to them for £50! Now I am breaching their copyright by publishing it here but I am sure they don't mind. The picture they published is a cut out of mine so they aren't quite the same.
As I was saying Van has seen a good number of empires come and go. This comes from an online encyclopedia based on the 1911 11th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"The Biainian dynasty, of which Sarduris I. (c. 833 B.C.) was the first king, died out with Sarduris II., who in 645 B.C. entered into an alliance with Assur-bani-pal. Inscriptions of nearly all the kings exist, and the various excavations at Toprak Kale [an earlier name for Van Castle] show an advanced state of civilization and great technical skill (see illustrations in Maspero's Histoire ancienne, vol. iii., Les Empires). In the 6th century B.C. Van passed into the hands of the Persians, and shortly before it fell to Alexander the Great it was rebuilt, according to Armenian historians, by a native prince called Van. In 149 B.C. Valarsaces or Vagharshag, the first Armenian king of the Arsacidae, rebuilt the town, and a colony of Jews was settled in it by Tigranes (94-56 B.C.). In the middle of the 4th century A.D. it was taken by Sapor (Shapur) II., and became the capital of an autonomous province of the Sassanian Empire, until it fell into the hands of the Arabs (c. 640), under whom it regained its autonomy. About 908 the governor of Van or Vaspuragan was crowned king by the caliph Moktadir, and in 1021 his descendant Senekherim was persuaded by Basil II. to exchange his kingdom for the viceroyalty of the Sebasteian theme. After having formed part of the possessions of the Seljuks, Mongols, Tatars and Persians, Van passed in 1514, after the defeat of Shah Ismail by Selim I. at the battle of Kalderan, to the Osmanlis, who only occupied the town in 1543. In 1636 it was taken by the Persians, but soon recovered. In 1845 the town was held for a time by the Kurd chief Khan Mahmud, who eventually surrendered and was exiled."
This history ends before the beginning of World War I. The history of Van during and after World War I is far from glorious. The Resistance at Van was an insurgency against the Ottoman Empire's attempts to liquidate its Armenian population in the vilâyet of Van. It was one of the few instances during the Armenian Genocide where Armenians, in an act of self-defense, fought against the Ottoman Empire's armed forces. I refer you to Wikipedia and suggest you follow the link for "the Resistence at Van".
The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica describes Van itself as follows: "The town itself is a poor place with flat-roofed mud houses, narrow winding streets, and surrounded by a ruinous mud wall". It had changed a bit since then. From Van Kalesi it looked like the picture above. It still wasn't much to write home about and my film was too precious to take any pictures.
Also taken from the "ramparts" were the following shots of the remains of the the ancient city.
My second day in Van saw Rudiger and I on a service bus at 7.30am heading in the direction of Hoşap Kale on the road to Hakkari. The castle is at a place called Güzelsu (which means "beautiful water" or "good water").
The castle is built on a rocky outcrop on the north bank of the Hoşap River. The structure dates mostly from 1643 (1052 A.H.), when Mahmudi tribal lord and Hoşap's governor Sari Süleyman Bey rebuilt the castle and added a new entrance tower. A castle may have been built at this location as early as the Urartu Kingdom (see above); it is certain, however, that the structure was built early on and modified numerous times until the seventeenth century. The Mahmudi castle was damaged in two sieges by the Ottoman Beylerbeyi, or Governor General of Van in the 1650s and in 1839. It was restored between 1970 and 1973 and in 1986 by the Turkish Ministry of Culture.
Built by Sari Süleyman in 1643, the entrance tower is twenty-six meters in diameter including its four-meter-thick walls. Its west-facing door is set inside a tall, arched frame that contains the foundation inscription carved in black basalt stone. The inscription is set in a frame of muqarnas and cable molding and crowned with a large tear motif flanked by two lion figures in relief.
If I remember correctly I bought a very small souvenir from this place. It was a cylindrical piece of stone with what might possibly be Urartian cuneiform inscriptions on it. It might have been some kind of seal. I later added it to my jet prayer beads from Erzurum and Rudiger showed me how the locals do the trick they do all the time flicking the beads around their hands. This was something that came in very handy.
Eastern Anatolia, far eastern Turkey is a spectacularly beautiful place. When I was there the places I visited were almost deserted. Taking pictures of places never involved waiting for the scene to clear of other tourists. There was no-one else around.
So, after a little while looking around the castle and taking the pictures above we decided to move on. We got a minibus/dolmus to the crossroads and began to walk to Gurpinar. As we walked along a tour bus came along. So we were not entirely alone. Rudiger flagged it down and we hitched a lift with a German tour group and the "Diana Tour" bus. What a stroke of luck! It took us to Gevaş where we paused briefly to visit and photograph the Halime Hatun Kumbet, a mausoleum dating from 1358, the Karakoyunlu period.
The Karakoyunlu period refers to the the Black Sheep Turkmen mentioned before. Why is it that the history of this part of the world sounds so utterly fantastic? The Black Sheep Turkmen may sound an unlikely name for any group but they once controlled the Middle East. In the period of Cihan Shah, also sometimes spelled Jahan Shah, not to be confused with Shah Jahan (see a later, as yet unwritten section of this blog) , the Karakoyunlu State was at its greatest size. A website I came accross called OzTurkler.com has a slightly curiously worded article on the Karakoyunlu State. It says:
"The state established dominion in Azerbaijan, Erran, Iraq-ı Arab,Fars, Kirman and the Western Anatolia and the neighbouring states had become submissive to Karakoyunlu State. Cihan Shah who was one of the greatest rulers of the state was a firm and brave person. He was fond of alcoholic drinks and entertainment. Upon his death, the glorious period of the state came to an end and the Karakoyunlu State was dissolved after a short period. Hasan Ali who was the last Karakoyunlu ruler was a mentally retarded and greedy person. Pursuant to his death, Cihan Shah's son, Ebu Yusuf whose eyes were burnt out by Uzun Hasan tried to establish dominion in Farsi city, but he was caught by the Akkoyunlu prince, Ugurlu Mehmed. Therefore, the Akkoyunlu State abolished the dominion of the Karakoyunlu State that was their traditional enemy and possessed their countries".
Who were the Akkoyunlu? Yes, the White Sheep Turkmen.
Apparently there are few works of art that survive from the period of the Karakoyunlu State. OzTurker.com says that this is principally because the period was a kind of settlement period by Turkmen but it also seems that the hostility of the Akkoyunlu Turkmens, struggles with Tamburlaine's sons, and the conflicts with the Mameluke Sultanate (from Egypt?) had prevented the architectural activities of the Karakoyunlu rulers. So it's lucky that there was anything to take a picture of. The picture of the Mausoleum is the only picture of Gevas in Illan Aksit's book.
It is great fun filling in the gaps in this blog with stuff I never knew back when I was there. All I had was one slide that I could identify from a similar picture of it in Ilhan Aksit's book. The research has taken me on another voyage of discovery into the enormous territory that amounts to not only what I didn't know then but what I didn't know I didn't know. I appreciate I am straying into the terminological turf that belongs to Donald Rumsfeld but what I am finding out now is what he might call an unknown unknown.
For instance, although not strictly relevant to my travels, I looked up Tamburlaine referred to above and discover more stuff I didn't know. It is information that resonates with magical names and places and the most astonishing facts. Check out this from Wikipedia (NB Timur is another name for Tamburlaine):
"He ruled over an empire that, in modern times, extends from southeastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, North-Western India, and even approaching Kashgar in China. Northern Iraq remained predominantly Assyrian Christian until the destructions of Timur. When Timur conquered Persia, Iraq and Syria, the civilian population was decimated. In the city of Isfahan, he ordered the building of a pyramid of 70,000 human skulls, from those that his army had beheaded, and a pyramid of some 20,000 skulls was erected outside of Aleppo. Timur herded thousands of citizens of Damascus into the Cathedral Mosque before setting it aflame, and had 70,000 people beheaded in Tikrit, and 90,000 more in Baghdad. As many as 17 million people may have died from his conquests. Timur is historically considered to be a contradictory and controversial figure, as was the case even during his lifetime. He was a patron of the arts, but also destroyed the great centres of learning during his conquests."
That puts the record of some more recent evil dictators into perspective. I do wonder whether the recent US led military "adventures" in Afghanistan and Iraq would have been contemplated for very long had Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheyney and Condoleeza Rice spent a few days reading some history of the region. It does seem that barbarity and terrible slaughter has been a regular feature since time immemorial. The lesson hasn't been learned. Only today (14 January 2008) a speech in Saudi Arabia by President George W Bush is being reported. In the speech he seems to be spoiling for a fight with Iran.
Having taken the picture above we boarded a ferry to Akdamar Island. It's a 90 minute trip and 3 km accross the lake to the island. The Lake is the largest body of water in Anatolia and the second largest in the Middle East. It covers an area of 1,434 square miles (3,713 square km) and is more than 74 miles (119 km) across at its widest point. I remember reading in my Lonely Planet Guide that the high sodium carbonate and sodium sulfate content of the water meant you could wash your clothes in the water without using soap. My quick web research reveals that the salts are actually extracted by the process of evaporation and used in the production of detergents.
The Lake is very deep, 451 meters at its deepest. It seems that the same year I was there scientists were examining the bottom of the lake because the sediment could provide climate information. This work has obviously continued and the results could give the creationist writer, Mr Northrup, that I mentioned before something of a headache. According to "Science Daily" an international team of researchers headed by the University of Bonn have been exploring the bottom of the lake. They have found that every year a layer of sediment about an inch thick is formed on the bottom of the lake. The layer is formed in stages according to the season. They think that this means there is information there going back 800,000 years. They want to tap the information for the last 500,000 years at least. Clearly this kind of claim ought to make creationists uncomfortable but then I remember that the simple answer to these discoveries is that God put the layers of sediment there as a test of faith when he created everything about 7,000 years ago. I forgot that. Doh!
On Akdamar Island stands the 10th century Church of the Holy Cross or Akdamar Kilesi. According to www.sacredsites.com: "The name given to the island, Aght'amar, is explained by a local legend. A nobleman who fell in love with a beautiful girl named Tamar visited the island every night to see her. As he was crossing the lake one stormy night, his boat capsized and fighting the waves, he drowned uttering the words "Ach Tamar". Tamar, awaiting the arrival of her loved one, grieved deeply upon hearing the news of his death and died soon after. Hence, the island was called "Ach Tamar" (Aght'amar) ever since. Local folklore also tells that the lake is enchanted and that angels go in and out of the water." I think the legend would be easier to understand if we knew what the word "Ach" might mean. This site also says that Lake Van is Turkey's third largest lake. So perhaps the information is not entirely reliable.
The piece on the www.sacredsites.com begins "Breathtaking in the beauty of its surroundings, the ruined church of Akdamar Island in Lake Van represents one of the most sublime examples of Armenian religious architecture. The church is the sole remaining building of the palace of Aght’amar built by the architect Bishop Manuel between 915 and 921 AD. Constructed during the reign of the Armenian King Gagik Ardzrouni of the Vaspurakan dynasty, the complex of buildings originally included streets, gardens and terraced parks surrounding the palace and church. Constructed with a cruciform plan (cross-shaped) and a conical roof domed on the inside, the building is made of red colored tufa stone brought to the island from distant quarries."
When I took this picture of one of the reliefs on the exterior of the church I had thought it might be St George slaying the dragon but from what Ilhan Aksit's book tells me it is probably Samson in combat with a serpent.
The view of Akdamar Kilesi on the Lake with the mountains in the distance ranks as one of the most spectacular of my trip up until that point.
So we returned to Van and over a few games of backgammon we planned the next leg.
