A Bit Off the Beaten Path

Hittite Vase

"Ankara" Yesim said accenting the first syllable and rolling the "r". "is the second largest city in Turkey."

We were now on a small twenty-passenger bus due to the narrow streets we would be traveling. Earlier in the day while still on our big bus we had visited the tomb of  Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. The area around the moseleum was extremely crowded.  The plaza in front of his tomb will hold 50,000 people. Our guide, Yisim, was adimate about the Turkish people's love for Ataturk. Incedently, Ataturk was a name bestowed on Mustafa by the Turkish parliament meaning " Father of the Turks".  However, she failed to mention Ataturk's involvement in the genocide of thousands of Armenians. Tensions were high in the area of the museuleum with increased security due the hundreds of protesters on hand. And now we were on mini-buses traveling the back streets of Ankara en route to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The streets were crowded and in many places only one lane was available if indeed there had ever been two lanes.  The rugged gravel streets wove there way through the Atpazan area of Ankara. There were shops with canopies on either side with foodstuffs and other goods for sale stacked very close to the street. The dust was stiffling in the warm November afternoon as the buses tires crunched over the gravel street.

 Soon we reached the museum which is housed in a  old bazaar building. Displays are modern and well maintained.  The objects displayed date from 8000 B.C. to the Greek and Roman period. I find the ancient metal work very interesting. When copper was first mined and refined and cast some beautiful objects were created. Copper was also hammered or rather forged into various useful and decorative items. Then tin was mined and mixed with copper and the resultant metal , bronze, prompted the name, Bronze Age.  Gold is seen in some of the jewelry. Beautiful in design and execution. Perhaps one  of the most interesting of the objects presented was a small statue of a sitting female only 10 inches in height.   She is the Mother Goddess, Kybele, from the period 80000-5500 B.C. She a gross figure very overweight with ponderous breasts hanging to her waist. Looking closely I notice the the sitting figure is giving birth with the head of an infant emerging from between her legs. This is the mother goddess from which all mankind came. Every civilization needs a creation story. 

"Yesim," I asked, "Why is the mother goddess so grossly overweight?"

"Because, it was in those times that people got fat in the summer when food was plentiful. In winter food was not as plentiful." 

I got it: they lived off the fat just like many animals do.  

Across from Kybele is a seventh century B.C. wall painting depicting a volcanic eruption and next to it an ancient map. It is the first map I've seen created before the birth of Christ.   Perhaps, more attention is given to the Hittite period (1750-1200 B.C.) in this museum. And, indeed it is the largest collection of Hittite artifacts in the world.  One of the most interesting pieces on exhibit here is a letter.  It is written by the wife of Ranses II, Nefertari, to the Hittite queen, Puduhepa. Girl-talk. I asked Claudette what she thought two queens would talk about. She did not speculate. There are quite a few large carved stone lions about ten feet long. The lion is usually the symbol of the monarchy.But some of these lions are smiling and some are snarling. Why? Probably only the ancients could tell.  This was one of those places where I could have stayed a long time. But it was not to be.  Places to go and things to see.

We boarded the mini-buses and wound our way through the narrow streets reminiscent of Granada to our hotel. Tomorrow we would be on the road again.