Hello from SanliUrfa, 

Few people outside Turkey have ever heard of Urfa or SanliUrfa. I am here in order to visit the fabulous archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe, a twelve thousand year old temple connected with the domestication of wheat (Watch this hour and half long YouTube documentary; it is amazing!). But the city of Urfa itself has many attractions. After all, it is the traditional birth place of the prophet Abraham or Ibrahim as he is known to Muslims and plays other important roles in Biblical history. A large park below the cliff top Urfa Castle in the north-east corner of the city contains a cave said to be the traditional place of his birth.  Abrahams Cave is a tiny dark hole chopped into the cliff face at ground level. The actual cave is hardly visible today, being surrounded by a modern marble entryway and a protective glass viewing window. One would think the founder of the Western world's three great monotheistic religions would have had a more auspicious beginning, but that small hole in the ground is where it all started.

Within the same park also is to be found the Abraham Pool which legend says holds the water created by God when Nimrod tried to throw Abraham into a fire for teaching monotheism. According to the myth, the fire was miraculously turned into water thus sparing Abraham's life and the hot coals became fish. So honored is the myth, today law protects the fish and it is a serious crime to molest them. As the pools and canals connecting them have limited dimensions, it is a wonder the confined school has not experienced a population explosion. It is certain they will not starve to death as an endless mob of mostly children are constantly feeding them a special "fish food" sold by countless venders throughout the park. I took photos of course.

Climbing the hill above the city one day I explored the ruins of the castle from which legend says Nimrod attempted to stamp out the "one god" heresy being promoted by the prophet Abraham. While there, I had one of my most memorable experiences. A group of junior high-school girls and their English teacher decided to take advantage of the opportunity to converse with an actual live native English speaker: me. Mostly giggling, they struggled to formulate questions in English and I obliged by searching for simple answers in English. At one point someone asked if I knew of the Koran and when I admitted to even having read it, the religion teacher accompanying the group suddenly materialized and led an enthusiastic round of applause for the enlightened infidel. I suppose they figured someone had converted me. When I started taking my pictures everyone wanted to get snap shots as well with the strange white haired foreigner included in their photos.

My research into background information for Göbekli Tepe near Urfa where I stayed most of the time produced an avalanche of useful materials. During an extended search I discovered this excellent article in the December 19, 2011 New Yorker magazine. Rich in supporting evidence it describes what has been learned from the archaeological site and how the new insights augment earlier conclusions about the ascent of mankind from prehistoric times. Even if you have no interest at all in the Turkish ruins, the implications for understanding our human condition make reading the article worthwhile. Additional information from this National Geographic article is both entertaining and enlightening. Finally, a scholarly eighty minute video by filmikz.ch-Gobeklitepe adds a credible speculative dimension  to our understanding of this amazing archaeological bridge. Be sure to compare the 3-D model of the original temple structures created for the film with my photographs of the actual archeological ruins as they exist today.

 

But, as usual I get ahead of my story. The ten hour over night bus ride left Goreme at seven PM and arrived in the outskirts of SanliUrfa a half hour before 5AM. Snatching a few minutes sleep now and then, the trip passed quickly. When the bus belched us all out at a still deserted bus terminal this predawn early hour I could see no indication of anyway to get into the city center and no one, and I mean NO ONE spoke a stitch of any of the several languages I can use in desperate situations.

PERFECT. Now a real adventure is unavoidable. The other passengers all seemed to have made sensible previous arrival arrangement and most were gone from the scene almost immediately. Alone on the deserted arrival platform I started my exploratory wandering around the dimly lit periphery of the arrival lot and soon spotted human activity down the hill. This turned out to be the overnight garage for the city bus system and drivers loitered about making preparations for the start of their work day. Following the roads around the perimeter of the intercity bus terminal complex I eventually found the driveway into the city bus garage and cautiously wandered in.

The first bewildered guy I surprised clearly wanted to help me solve what ever improbable problems I must be having at this inhuman, still dark hour out here in the middle of nowhere. With gestures and a mangled pronunciation of the city name, SanliUrfa I made him understand I wanted to get into the center of the city and Saint Serendipity intervened.

Palpably anxious to understand my need... and HELP, he figured out my charades, walked me over to a particular bus about ready to leave, made the driver comprehend my problem and then motioned for me to get on, grinning with satisfaction. As I fumbled with my wad of Turkish lira, gesturing questions about paying a fare, both men good naturedly waved my payment offer off and indicated I should just sit down... which I did.

After a ten minute drive, clusters of store fronts suggested we had arrived in the downtown part of the city where the driver stopped at another smaller bus assembly point and made me understand he needed to wait a few minutes before starting his regular run. When we did get going he periodically gestured for me to stay seated until we had reached a specific place in town, where upon he opened the door and waved me out with something in friendly Turkish that must have been the equivalent of "have a nice day."

Now on the street in what appeared to be an area catering to tourists I wandered wide eyed until I spotted a tiny bakery already open and strolled in hoping to find one of those delicious sesame bread rings called simits. Sure enough this beaming guy proudly sold me one of his still warm pastries for about twenty cents worth of lira and I left thrilled at such good luck to continue my wandering mission. I later learned the bus had been one of the every five minutes circular R-1 ring route buses, a system I quickly learned to exploit in my exploration of the inner city.

The starting point selected by my bus company guardian angles this morning gave me a good look at many tourist hotels close to the major attractions clustered in this area. Abraham's Park is a focus of tourist activity. Abraham's Pool in the park teeming with thousands of holy carp attracts hoards of foreign tourists as well as a steady stream of locals. Religious pilgrims from all the Abrahamic faiths come here to see Abraham's cave, said to be the actual place of his birth. With an endless choice of benches, the park is a pleasant place to sit a while and watch armies of people marching by.

The first hotel I selected boasted five stars and a manageable room rate of 144TL ($80), so I took a room in the Hotel El-Ruha as the best value of the three I'd checked that first morning. At breakfast I eagerly sampled all the dozen or so different cheeses offered. The sheep milk cheese tasted unusual, but pretty good for an odd food. That got me to wondering what other mammals milk would be made into cheese.

I've heard of camel cheese; are there others? Humans are mammals, too. What about human milk cheese? Checking the Internet this is what came up! While I spent a winter in North Dakota with 5AM milking responsibilities, I have a hard time imagining how anyone would go about milking whales, but there are people who do it evidently. I'm still amazed by the discoveries possible when thinking outside the box! However, it is getting more and more difficult to ever have a truly original thought. If I can think it, someone else earlier probably has already thought it! Back to the subject at hand, the Turks do like their cheeses... and olives! Breakfast buffets always include generous selections of both... and strong sweet tea served in tiny juice glasses. Meat for breakfast is always baloney and lots of it. Diners are sure to find several kinds of bread and a half dozen kinds of sweet spreads that predictably includes honey... usually served with the comb for a waxy chew.

After four nights in the El-Ruha Hotel without WiFi in my room I decided to try a different lodge. The 60TL Hotel Guven looked like a bargain on first inspection, but service limitations and an anemic breakfast prompted me to abandon the place after a single night, moving a block north to the 70TL four star Hotel Harran where I spent the remainder of my two weeks in the city. The Harran needs better maintenance, but at only $39 some compromises are not unexpected. The first two rooms they gave me had serious problems with no hot water and no Wifi. The third room in the back tower solved most of the problems well enough that I stayed on for ten nights. While in the Harran I usually walked over to the Gulhan Restaurant for their lunchtime cafeteria selections. The Turkish food menu satisfied my curiosity about the cuisine at reasonable prices.

I am still running into evidence of racial prejudice against the Kurds in Turkey, even here in Urfa which has a large Kurdish minority. This morning I chatted with Serdar Aoci who runs the City government tourist information center and learned he is Kurdish. As he speaks better than passable English I took the opportunity to explore his impressions of racial relations in his country. With little encouragement he related several experiences where he felt his Kurdish heritage had resulted in prejudiced treatment; some bureaucratic process which would be no problem for other Turks suddenly became impossible or very difficult for a Kurd. As our conversation progressed I became aware of subtle signs of his increased agitation. Always a gentleman he remained completely rational, but  a tightness in his voice betrayed an undercurrent of suppressed emotional feelings. I too know the feelings of being treated irrationally from rejections I experienced as a young father being told by a landlord he had no vacancy as soon as he learned we had a new baby in our family.

I'm taking a lot of pictures during my long stay in this interesting city. The first batch features reminders of experiences in and around the hotels... and that eventful visit to Urfa Castle where a gang of teenage girls and their English teacher excitedly pounded me for information about my "fascinating" life and views of Turkey and its people. Another day during one of my walks I came upon the Urfa Cultural Center and its garden full of archaeological replicas. Out came my trusty GoGear camera for this collection. I have enjoyed several strolls through the gardens of Abraham's Park and Pools. Yesterday I took the time to record some of what I'd been seeing during my strolls. Here are the photos.

The main reason I came to SanliUrfa is because it is only twenty-five kilometers from the world's most ancient archaeological find: Gobekli Tepe. After many aborted attempts to find public transportation up to the digs from the city and finally acknowledging twenty-five kilometers is no longer a practical day hike, I finally made arrangements with the Ministry of Culture tourist information agent, Mr. Serdar Aoci to take me there... and tell me what he knows about it... using understandable, if somewhat Kurdish accented English. 

Using Serdar's personal car we headed east for the road to the archeological site, but first detoured to pick up his younger brother currently waiting for a geography teaching job to make use of his recent university degree.  The twenty-five minute drive took us through rolling hills interspersed with fields of cotton and corn. The archeological site itself is located in a remote rural area; the closest village is four kilometers away. Having devoured dozens of documentaries and traveler reports of the site, I pretty much knew what to expect as I eased out of the car onto the cleared area serving as a parking lot.

At the very edge of the graveled parking area the first of the ancient artifacts became obvious. What it is, no one is quite sure. I speculated it might be an ancient hot tub carved into the bed rock or a decorative fish pond. Scattered over the smooth slightly curved bed rock surface dozens of bowl shaped cavities suggested containers or grinding mortars to me. As this area is hardly mentioned in the Internet reports I'd studied, I spent quite a while examining the unusual stone work. Finally satisfied, I followed Serdar and his brother, Serdaf on down the well worn narrow path toward the main excavation pits. While images of the site from my online studies eliminated any surprises, the actual sight of the first pit struck me as initially underwhelming.

What I saw appeared to be an unorganized jumble of partially uncovered pillars and broken stone monuments, many of which could only be surmised from the protective wooden box coverings which completely hid the precious artifacts inside. In a few minutes the reality of an actual ongoing archaeological dig became apparent and I realized just how privileged I was to be allowed to visit and study this most ancient of human records.

You will note I have included numerous links to background materials and various professional informed speculations about the origin, relations to other ancient evidence and purposes of this enigmatic cluster of clusters of what seems to be a sacred place of worship or celebration. One researcher speculated Gobekli Tepe might be the origin of religion itself! All agree the people made their living by hunting and gathering wild things. There also is agreement these people predate the invention of pottery, metal smelting as well as farming.

That raises the question of what tools would have been used to carve the images seen on many columns. Serdar stooped down and presented an obviously flaked/knapped piece of flint about an inch and a half long with a very sharp edge. Amazed, I took the ancient cutting tool and closely inspected it to be sure it actually had been manufactured by human hands. No doubt about it. The long sharpened edge needed a designer and a skilled artisan to produce such precision. Any doubt about it soon disappeared as Serdar stooped again to present me with a second example much like the first. Now, I started looking for the peculiarly shaped orange colored rocks and soon found a couple more myself.

The grounds around the archaeological dig are literally covered with scraps of flint like those Serdar found. As impressed as I by our finds, Serdar noted: "Many tourists take rocks like those away as souvenirs... despite signs forbidding it. It is hard to enforce such rules." he added with a sly conspiratorial grin. In fact, there is only one caretaker on the premise unless an excavation is in progress. Most researchers speculate flint knives like these could have been used for shaping and carving the stones.

As we prepared to leave Savak  (pronounced Shavack), the caretaker revealed himself to be the nephew of the old Kurdish shepherd, Savak Yildiz who had originally discovered the site back in October 1994. Savak proved to be a delightfully charming guy, relating his role, with Serdar's translation help as caretaker of his uncle's discovery for almost two decades now, obviously a bit uncomfortable with the notoriety it has brought him.

As Savak chatted with Serdar I started taking my pictures of the guys, noting especially the peculiar "upside down shirt" baggy trousers  called shalvar worn by most older Kurdish men. As Serdar is also Kurdish I asked him why he wore western style pants. "They are more convenient when I'm working, but at other times I prefer the comfort afforded by the Kurdish style." he replied. The Shutterfly slide show for my Gobekli Tepe exploration is here.

This amazing Samsung Galaxy Note seems to be an everything gadget. Lately I've been enjoying video chats with a couple friends who have learned how to use Google Talk on their computers. It works with all computers (as well as Android smart phones) which have built in cameras (most laptops do). Google Talk makes it possible to conduct free video chats to or from anywhere in the world. The adventuresome also might want to explore Google Voice capabilities. With it you get a free telephone number and the coordination of all your several phones. It takes some learning, but the effort is worth the trouble.

I have now been here in SanliUrfa for two weeks and will soon leave for Mardin, a convenient jumping off place into northern Iraq I am told. During my time here I have twice heard military level gun fire and explosions while trying to sleep in my hotel room. On two other occasions flights of fighter jets passed over our hotel. News reports make it clear this part of Turkey is a war zone. (Read: Turkey's Kurdish Problem) Still, people mostly go about their business as usual, hardly taking any notice of the hostilities occurring around the periphery of their city. Several informants assure me it is both possible and SAFE to travel deeper into the Kurdish south eastern part of the country! The safety is something not obvious from all the news reports about attacks on the PKK by Turkish military, but I keep watching the eKurd news service for relevant information.  I'll close this postcard now so it can go out before I leave for mysterious points east.

PS: 4 Dec Hello again from Urfa Turkey,

Things are so cheap here I have been seduced into repeatedly extending my stay... especially since I found the 39 dollar boutique Hotel Akgol with excellent WiFi and an actual table terminal in the lobby (but with damned Turkish keyboards and old versions of Windows XP not supporting QWERTY keyboard change). Views from the top floor dining room and guest rooms are kinetic and interesting, but lighting in the bathrooms is woefully inadequate. Breakfast is the real weak link in the chain of satisfactions for this hotel: many  kinds of olives, a big selection of cheeses, bread with a half dozen sticky spreads, hard boiled eggs, a generous pile of unhealthy slices of salami, tea or powdered coffee, cereal, orange Kool-Aid and a couple tasteless fried pastry thingies. I won't starve, but I am looking forward to my next deluxe hotel where they come a little closer to a Western breakfast.

Rain and predicted more rain for the next few days has complicated my onward travel planning, but it looks like I'll be able to make it over to Mardin Wednesday. As there is rain predicted for many following days I may be stuck there for a while, but the place looks interesting enough for an extended hangout.

The observations about other sources of milk for cheese in the last postcard got a rise out of a couple readers and prompts me to note I neglected to mention the fantasies I had about collecting milk from some of the mammals like lactating human ladies or whales with their calves. As a teenager I spent a winter on a North Dakota farm with 5AM milking responsibilities so I have some direct first hand experience with the process of milking mammals... of the mooing kind.

PSS: HOTELS (November-May):
Hotel Guven $33 1 nite

 

Gobekli Tepe- Sign next to the entry gate explaining the rules for visitors.

Gobekli Tepe- This is the first artifact cut into the bed rock I saw at the edge of the parking area.

Gobekli Tepe- One of the signs explaining Enclosure A.

Gobekli Tepe- Close up of the text on the entry gate sign.

Gobekli Tepe- This is the first pit I reached during my exploration of the excavation sites.

Gobekli Tepe- As I walked around the several boardwalk systems I snapped frequent record photos. I'll never be here again.

Gobekli Tepe- Many of the fragile structures like these have been encased in protective wooden cases.

Gobekli Tepe- Many of the fragile structures uncovered have been encased in protective wooden cases.

Gobekli Tepe- Sign explaining the origin and meaning of the name, Gobekli Tepe.

Gobekli Tepe- Steel supports like these have been installed on some of the more fragile structures in all of the pits.

Gobekli Tepe- One of the signs showing a map of the area.

Urfa- Looking north from the intercity otogar or bus terminal.

Urfa- Vender selling simits gets on bus just before we departed for Mardin.