ABOUT MANISA

Manisa is believed to be a city which transforms legends and dreams into reality; where oil flows from the mountains and honey from the plains. Its rich history, cultural heritage, and geography are the proof of this. Manisa was like a second capital of the Ottoman Empire, where Suleyman the Magnificent and seven sultans who ruled four continents were either born or trained. Our forefathers bequeathed to Manisa hundreds of buildings in the form of hospitals, caravanserais, schools, mosques.
The second day of the conference, most probably towards the evening hours, an inner city tour is planned to acquaint the participants with the cultural heritage that we have inherited and preserved so far.  The following sites are intended to be visited:

The natural outcropping that is locally known as Ağlayan Kaya (The Weeping Rock) is one of the many distinctive symbols of Manisa’s legendary past. Versions of the story surrounding it have been handed down through the ages. The image of a weeping woman with falling hair about her shoulders in profile forms a monumental portrait.
According to Greek mythology, Niobe was the daughter of King Tantalos, the founder of the first settlement in Manisa, and the wife of Amphion. She gave birth to seven sons and seven daughters. She was proud of her fertility- too proud as it happened for it led her to belittle the goddess Leto, the mother of only two children. The children, twins, however were Apollo and Artemis and as Leto did not take kindly to such insults, she prevailed upon her children not to let them go unpunished. They, in turn, slaughtered all of Niobe’s children on Mount Spil, transfixing them with arrows. So enormous was Niobe’s grief and pain that Zeus heeded her pleas and turned her into a stone there, in the foothills of the mountain. Many ancient travelers, geographers, and historians, including Strabo, Herodotus, and Pausanias saw and reported this natural formation and related it to the Niobe myth.

Wishing both to safeguard and document the evidence of the way of life, belief, labour, and tastes of the people of the region over the centuries and also to pay their debt of respect to the past, the people of Manisa began collecting movable works within the province and bringing them into Manisa for safekeeping when the idea was first put forth in 1934, in the new republic. Work was started on restoring the Muradiye Medrese (which was then being used as a temporary shelter to house newly-arrived immigrants and poor families) to serve as the museum building. The works were first put on display there in 1935.
Muradiye Medrese is a work by the architect Sinan. With a nearly square-shaped plan, it consists of a sequence of connecting halls and rooms located around a central courtyard.

So great was the number and variety of the works being turned over to the museum that, these premises soon became insufficient to house them all and the hospice located to the medrese’s east was also pressed into service. In 1972, the museum underwent a major restoration, in the course of which the collection was split into two with archaeological works being put on display in the hospice while ethnographical material was retained in the medrese section. The portico of the archaeological section was given over to the display of large-scale works in marble-statues, busts, and reliefs. One of the museum’s stellar attractions, drawing both popular and scholarly interest not only in Turkey but from all over the world is the Sardes Hall, which is devoted to the display of objects that have been unearthed at the Sardes excavations since 1958. A wide range of the artifacts of the powerful Lydian kingdom, some of them dating back to the 7th. Century B.C, continue to be turned up in these excavations and their addition to the museum’s inventory further enriches the value and importance of this section. Among the most charming discoveries in recent years for example, are a number of small pottery vessels shaped birds and ducks. These are equipped with sieved spouts and archaeologists believe that they were intended to be used as feeding bottles for infants.
In addition to Lydian works, the museum also has works from the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods on display: marble statues, mosaics, bronzes, and an unusual collection of earthen crucibles that were used in gold refining. A section called the ‘Treasury’ has a rich assortment of precious antiquities such as gold diadems, rings, earrings, and bracelets, silver bowls and dippers, ivory hair bands, and toys. The collection is rounded out with gold, silver, electrum, and bronze coins from Lydian, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman times.

Large-scale works are displayed outdoors which were brought in from the architectural heritage of theaters, stadiums, gymnasiums, and temples in the vicinity- all evidence of the level of culture and art that was sustained by the wealthy economy of the Gediz valley, supported as it was by agriculture, animal raising and mining.
Another hall of the museum contains works that are evidence of prehistoric settlement in the valley: a fossilized human footprint that maybe as much as 15,000 years old and examples of the pottery from around 3000 BC in settlements discovered at Kırkağaç- Bostanlı and Akhisar-Gölmarmara that shed important light on the transition to a settled village way of life in the region.
The medrese section, the original core of the museum, today houses a collection of works of Anatolian Turkish art including military, governmental, religious, and vernacular works from the Saruhan principality, the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish Republic periods. The oldest objects in this collection are the wooden door panels from the pulpit of the Manisa Grand Mosque (Ulu Cami). These panels are made of carved walnut inlaid with wood and ivory and are exquisite examples of this genre.
Among the other fine works on display that never fail to attract the attention of the visitors are the elegant examples of silk velvets and brocades decorated with silver and gold, and 17th. and 18th. Century calligraphies and calligrapher’s implements. In 1965, the museum’s collection of ethnographic works was enriched by the addition of material sent to Manisa from the Topkapı Sarayı museum in İstanbul.

Grandson of Saruhan Bey, İshak Çelebi had it built in 1368 in order to preserve and spread Mevlevi culture. The lodge located at the foot of Spil mountain was used by Mevlevi dervishes until the end of the 19th. Century and was abandoned after then.

It is rumored among folks that the Han was built by the Karaosmanoğulları in 1825-1830. The Han is a two-storey building with a middle courtyard. There are shops adjacent to south, east and west sides. The lower floor rooms open to the courtyard, while the upper floor ones to the porches. There are 33 shops in total and except for a few ones all of the shops have furnaces within.
The restoration of the Han was performed between 2001 and 2004. Presently it serves as a shopping and leisure center.

The last day of the conference will cover a visit to the neighbouring town Sardes. Sardes, 70 kms. From Manisa, is located on the İzmir- Ankara highway. It was the capital of the Lydian Kingdom and was very powerful both economically and politically in 11th. and 12th. Centuries B.C. The Lydians owed much of their wealth to operating gold mines situated around River Pactole (Pactolus), which is now called Sardes River. King Midas, who had the capacity of changing everything into gold was cured by a dip in Pactole (Pactolus).
The temple of Artemis, the Marble-Court Gymnasium Complex and the Synagogue, which is thought to have been built after the earthquake in 17 A.D. are some of the ruins that are worth visiting.
The Lydian city of Sardes is known to be the place where the coins were minted for the first time in history under the state guarantee. Excavations are still in progress at the Acropolis, the Artemis temple, the Gymnasium and its environs and the Royal Necropolis of Bintepeler.

Gala dinner will be given at Lidya Hotel, Sardes the same night. It is a thermal spa (salus per aquam) and wellness center, on the skirts of Bozdağlar (The Boz Mountain Range) with a view of Sardes ruins and Bintepeler. We hope the participants will have a memorable dinner there.