Antiquities and the Locals

Chapter 5 Antiquities and the Locals

Le fils d’Orchan fut saisi d’admiration et d’un saint respect à la vue de cette grandeur à demi tombée, des ruines pompeuses des temples de Cybèle, de Proserpine et de Jupiter. Le soir qu’il était assis pensif à la clarté de la lune, les yeux tournés vers la mer où se miraient les portiques de marbre et les avenues des colonnes … avec le souvenir du songe qui avait présagé l’empire du monde, il … prit la résolution d’unir l’Europe avec l’Asie par les conquêtes et l’établissement de la domination des Ottomans.[1] [1844] ∵

Osman (1288-1326) was the first Ottoman sultan, and Orhan (1326-62) his son. Whether Murad (1362-89), subject of the above quote, actually went to Cyzicus we cannot know, but the story is a good one, indicative of the ambitions of the Empire fuelled in some part by the magnificence of surviving ruins, and by the Ottoman ownership of them and what they represented. On occasion, indeed, classical antiquities and Roman roads were attributed to Turkish builders. In 1860 Taylor recorded how, along with Alexander the Great, “Sultan Murad IV [1731-1740] enjoys posthumous praise for having originally constructed the buildings whose crumbled remains are so frequent in Asia Minor.”[2] Folk memory is not always accurate, nor is mis-appropriation rare. The racial and religious mix of the Ottoman Empire (Turks, Greeks, Jews, Armenians, Circassians, Arabs, each speaking a different language, but some- times understanding others) means that the term “locals” must be used, because travellers’ narratives are non-specific except in those few cases where religion pays a part in hindering or helping their excavation or looting. Of course, the Sultan was never really local, but his officers were, because they were sent out to govern areas and take decisions regarding them. Further down the chain were local head-men who, like the stronger higher-up gov- ernment officials, often considered they owned anything lying in their area; they did not necessarily obey instructions from the top (firmans), but were usually open to bribery. As we have already seen, an important and perennial problem and opportunity for travellers was the re-use of antiquities in later structures, operated enthusiastically by early Christians and then by Muslims.

The problem was gaining access to some structures; but there was then the opportunity to transcribe inscriptions, or to try and wheedle interesting antiquities and carry them home. Another was vandalism, when monuments and statues were damaged or disfigured, perhaps by idle soldiers taking potshots at statues or reliefs, or by foreigners inscribing their names. The size of the Empire changed from the 1820s with the bloody and des tructive war which led in 1832 to the establishment (agreed by Great Britain, France, Russia and forced on Constantinople) of the new state of Greece. This, with its new capital at Athens, is dealt with in detail later in this book because of the new focus on classical Greek art and architecture, and the numerous visitors (some eager to plunder what was left) that resulted. We have seen that although travellers often carried classical cribs, they frequently had no more than a general idea of the location of many antique sites, let alone of their identity, unless inscriptions provided such information. Getting to sites, many of which were not prominent, but revealed only by ploughing or a search for building materials, required the help of the locals, who learned to see antiquities as a source of income. For example, when in 1865 Texier visited the site he identified as Colophon, the head man provided accommodation:

He was the owner of the land upon which the ruins stood; and when he heard of the object of our visit, he expressed himself very desirous that excavations should be carried on, probably in order that he might make a little money by them.[3]

A similar problem cropped up at Eleusis, where a portico was covered by cottages, and “the owners’ rights must be bought as a preliminary step to a systematic excavation.”[4] Ancient ruins buried and projecting were a bugbear for ploughing, and many large ones were broken up and small ones moved so that crops could be grown. At Leuctra, for example, “the inhabitants have long laboured in vain to introduce the plough for the cultivation of the soil,” and Clarke saw the locals “employed in breaking a huge bas-relief, and labouring hard to remove the foundations of antient edifices.”[5] This chapter charts the locals’ learning process vis-à-vis antiquities, spurred on by travellers’ collecting requirements. The trajectory is in three stages. First, bemusement that the Europeans should be interested in “old stones” (unless their inscriptions might mark the location of treasure?). Then growing awareness that there was money to be made from them. And finally the desire to set up museums in the Empire, so that the export of antiquities was prohibited, for they were now regarded as treasures incorporating and