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Pera Museum digs deep into Ottoman archaeological past
Running under the full title of "Osman Hamdi Bey and The Americans: Archaeology, Diplomacy, Art," the display will be open for viewing until January 2012.
The exhibition, curated by Professor Renata Holod and Professor Robert Ousterhout from the University of Pennsylvania in the US, is the second part of a two-part display of the works of Hamdi Bey, with the first, “New Orientalist Painting Exhibition,” having opened last month.
Speaking at a symposium held at the Pera Museum Auditorium on Saturday, the general director of the Suna and İnan Kıraç Culture and Arts Foundation, Özalp Birol, revealed that discussions have been under way since 2008 with the Pennsylvania University Archaeology and Anthropology Museum in the US and other establishments to contribute to the exhibition.
Present at the symposium alongside the two curators was a prestigious academic panel, including C. Brian Rose of the University of Pennsylvania, Nurettin Arslan of the Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Ahmet Ersoy of Boğaziçi University and Mary Roberts of Sydney University.
Explaining that the exhibition focuses on the great man's talents not just as an artist but also his aptitude as a museum founder, bureaucrat and archaeologist, Birol revealed that the exhibition will also shed light on the first American excavations on Ottoman soil at the end of the 19th century at the ancient sites of Nippur and Assos: “This will be the first opportunity that many in Turkey will have had to see these works. Pieces such as ‘Cami Kapısında' [At the mosque door] will be on exhibit for the first time ever.”
Ousterhout, a recognized specialist in Byzantine archaeology, said the exhibition sheds light on a long and captivating period of archaeological history: “This was such an important period for both Turkey and the US, and the two countries really worked together to benefit each other in their archaeological investigations. The exhibition gives an inside view to the relationships between Osman Hamdi Bey and individuals such as photographer John Henry Haynes [whose works are included in the exhibition] and archaeologist Hermann Vollrath Hilprecht, who was known as the ‘Columbus of archaeology'.”
Rose, who delivered a presentation on the beginning of archaeology in Ottoman lands, explained that the Archaeological Institute of America, which was founded in 1879, embarked upon their first big excavations in Turkey in the historical town of Assos between the years 1881 and 1883.
Arslan revealed in a lecture titled “Excavations at Assos -- from the First American Excavations in 1881 up to 2011” that of the pieces excavated between 1881 and 1883, one-third were given to the Archaeological Institute of America, with the rest remaining in Turkey.
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