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The European Merchants in Angora

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

R. D. Barnett
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Extract

Ties linking Britain with Ankara go back many centuries; probably the earliest evidence of them was published by David French in the last number of this Journal, in the form of a letter from Ambassador William Harborne to James Towerson dated to 1583; other evidence can certainly be gleaned from the extensive papers of the long extinct Levant Company. The present writer is able to point to a little more evidence formerly visible in Ankara itself.

Angora, the modern Ankara, now so easily reached by rail and air services, under the ancien régime must have seemed to Europeans almost forbiddingly remote.

The wildest guesses were made about its population and opinions fluctuated as to its attractions and importance. In 1700, a French traveller, Tournefort gave its population as 40,000 Moslems, 5,000 Armenians and 600 Greeks. Pococke (1737) speaks of 10,000 Christians. Poujoulat (1836–7) describes it, apart from Nicomedia, as the poorest Turkish town he had seen. He estimated its population as 20,000 Turks, 3,000 Catholic Armenians, 700 Greeks and 500 Jews. Yet in 1834–7 von Tschihatscheff spoke of it as having 8,000 Catholic Armenians, 500 Armenians of the national church, and 1,500 Greeks.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 24 , December 1974 , pp. 135 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1974

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References

1 French, David: “A Sixteenth Century English Merchant in Ankara”, AS. XXII, 1972Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr. and Mrs. French for great help in pursuing the inscriptions mentioned below and for helpful references.

2 Wood, A. C.: A History of the Levant Company, Oxford 1935, repr. 1964Google Scholar.

3 de Tournefort, Pitton: Relation d'un Voyage du Lévant, 2 vols. (Paris, 1717), Vol. II, p. 463Google Scholar. [= Lyon edition, III, p. 334.]

4 Pococke, R.: A Description of the East and Some Other Countries (London, 1745), Vol. II Part 2Google Scholar, “Observations on Asia Minor”, p. 89.

5 Poujoulat, Baptiste: Voyage dans l'Asie Mineure, 1836–1837. 2 vols. Paris, 1840Google Scholar.

6 von Tschihatscheff, P.: Reisen in Kleinasien und Armenien 1847–1863 in DrPetermann, A., Mitteilungen … über wichtige neue Erforschung, Ergänzungsband IV, Gotha, 1867Google Scholar.

7 Mordtmann, A. D.: Anatolien: Skizzen und Reisebriefe aus Kleinasien (1850–1859): ed. Babinger, , Hanover, 1925Google Scholar.

8 Wood, op. cit.

9 The gifts consisted in 1593 of silver and rich garments and other suitable lesser gifts to the officials of the Sultan's household. Later followed the mechanical organ with performing figures of trumpeters and birds, silver ornaments and a gilded coach for the Sultana, eventually presented on the accession of Mehmed III in return for the renewal of capitulations. The coach and organ arrived with Mr. Dallam only in the autumn of 1599 on the ship Hector. See Rosedale, , Queen Elizabeth and the Levant Company, London, 1904Google Scholar.

10 Teonge, Henry; Diary of, 1675–1679, London 1825Google Scholar.

11 Ibid.

12 MajorGray, I. E.: “British Merchants at Alexandretta”, Genealogists' Magazine, March 1945Google Scholar (gives the epitaphs of five merchants).

13 Wood, op. cit. p. 72.

14 Mamboury, , Ankara: Guide Touristique (French ed. 1933) p. 142Google Scholar. “Les Arméniens. … avaient aussi au monastère de Vank, datant du milieu du XIIe s. sur la route d'Ettlik, un cimetière plus ancien rempli de fragments remployés d'époque romaine”.

15 Baedeker, , Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1905) p. 164Google Scholar: “von dort (Tal des Tabak Hanesu) gelangt man weiter in ½ St. zu dem in der Nähe der Akköprü (“weissen Brücke”) über den Tschibuksu … gelegenen armenischen Kloster Wank. Hinter einem Narthex steht ein achteckiger durch sieben Nischen erweiterter Bau, der von einer Kuppel bedeckt ist und dem sog. Tempel der Minerva Medica in Rom gleicht. Nach der Tradition ersetzte er einen antiken Tempel und diente früher dem Griechischen Kult; der Apostel Paulus soil hier geweilt haben. In der Apsis schöne Fayencen; unter dem Fussboden gewaltige tiefe Unterräume.”

16 Hans Dernschwams Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/65) ed. Babinger, , Studien zur Fuggergeschichte 7, pp. 188–9. [Reference from D. French.]Google Scholar

17 Hamilton, W. J.: Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia (2 vols. London 1842)Google Scholar: vol. I, p. 424. He calls the church, impolitely “the convent of the schismatic Armenians”, i.e. those in communion with Rome.

18 Some of these tiles are said to be preserved in the Ethnographic-Archaeological Museum Depot in Ankara: Carswell, J., Kütahya Tiles and Pottery from the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, Jerusalem (1972) II, p. 15 and n. 9.Google Scholar (I owe this reference to Mr. David French).

19 Tournefort, op. cit. II, pp. 455–6, 459–61: “Le château d'Angora est à triple enceinte … on nous conduisit dans la premiere enceinte à une Eglise Armenienne bâtie, à ce que l'on prétend, sous le nom de la Croix depuis 1200 ans.” [sic! This is impossible: but a 6th century date is not excluded.] “Elle est fort petite & fort obscure, eclairée en partie par une fenêtre, qui ne reçoit le jour qu'au travers d'une piece quarrée de marbre semblable à de l'albastre poli, & luisant comme du Talc, mais il est terne en dedans & la lumiere qui passe au travers est sensiblement rougeatre & tire sur la cornaline … Toute cette première enceinte est pleine de piédestaux, & d'Inscriptions; où est-ce qu'il n'y en a pas dans Angora? Un habile Antiquaire y trouveroit à transcrire pendant un an” [10 texts then follow]. “Le cimetière des Chrétiens est inépuisable en Inscriptions grecques & latines; mais la pluspart sont des Epitaphes de personnes pour lesquelles on ne s'interesse plus.” [Three inscriptions mentioning persons of some interest including a memorial altar set up by two persons Valens and Sanbatos, are then quoted.] “Hors la ville autour du Couvent de Ste Marie des Armeniens, parmi de beaux marbres antiques, des colomnes, architraves, bases, chapiteaux qui son auprès de la petite rivière de Chibouboujou [sic] se voyent plusieures Inscriptions, dont la plus remarquable est celle de M. Aurèle” [the dedication of Aelius Lycinus to the Emperor's numen is then quoted]. “Peutêtre même que le Buste qui est auprès, est celui de cet Empereur. C'est un Buste de front, de deux pieds de haut sur vingt pouces de largeur; mais il est fort maltraité. Le marbre est gris veiné de blanc, de même que la piédestal qui le soutenoit.” [= Lyon edition, III, pp. 326–32.]

20 Asklepios is included in the neo-Phrygian or local pantheon represented on the rock-relief at Hasanoǧlan; Barnett, R. D. “The Phrygian Rock-Façades and the Hittite Monuments”, Bi. Or. X (1953), 77 ffGoogle Scholar. and plate.

21 Macpherson, Ian: “Six Inscriptions from Galatia”, AS. XXII, 1972, p. 222, Fig. 5Google Scholar. Several other items were also transferred by us then for the sake of protection from this site to the grounds of the Roman Baths at Ankara, where they still are.

22 SirPears, Edwin, Turkey and its People (1911)Google Scholar.