What's New

What's New
ÖMER Erbil had a story in Radikal that terrified the reader the other day:
The company that built the subway in Marmaray entered the area that archaeologists had excavated in Yenikapı for years, but the crane was knocked over and the archaeological site was overrun.
It is quite natural that we have such a vandalism that cannot be seen in any civilized country in the world, because this is a country that sold the bath that Sinan built five centuries ago and then did not make a sound to be demolished!
On the evening of the day I read the news about the crane, there was a program about the Marmaray excavations in one of the documentary channels. In Yenikapı, not only the harbor and the boats for a thousand-odd years, but also thousands of animal bones were found, the bones were transferred to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, their classifications and studies were continued, and so on.
The Yenikapı excavations now have two completely different dimensions: First, the disgrace of the subway construction contractor firm diving into the excavation site with cranes; the other is the excavations that have been going on for years but are still a mystery about what was done, how it turned out, and how much it changed what is known about Istanbul's past.

ADVERTISING AND CLOSING WINDOW
"Ohaaa!" To the mentality that put cranes and construction machines into the archaeological site. The more accurate and even less it is to say, the more the city and its residents have the right to expect archaeologists to explain exactly what they have revealed so far.
I am not quite foreign to the past of the excavations in Yenikapı, I have tried to follow it since the days it started; I was one of the first to report about the excavations a few years ago and to publish the photographs of the found boats for the first time. I witnessed the enthusiasm and enthusiasm of finding something, but unfortunately, I also saw some scientists' curiosity in advertising, their inability to attract each other, and some of the masters of the work to be called "Illallah" and kidnapped. After all, I could not understand how the ruins and objects found in Yenikapı changed the history of the city ...
I could not understand, because the wind of talk and advertising that surrounds the surroundings such as "8 thousand years past", "neolithic period", "I don't know how many thousand years old skeleton", "thousands of bones", "lost port", "superhuman effort", "bad contractor" and so on. made it impossible to understand! There is something, the find is said to be extremely important and it is said that it completely changed the history of Istanbul. In the following days, another thing emerges, "Yahu, Istanbul turns out to be an ancient settlement center." After removing horse heads, cattle legs, dog jaws, seashells and so on, this "Oh, what have we found!" the wind could not stop.
Excavations of six or seven years may not be enough to be precise in archeology, but they will definitely generate an idea.

CITY, KNOWLEDGE
What I wonder is these ideas, that is, what the Yenikapı excavations have changed in the history of the city and world archeology, even for now… For example, are the newly discovered walls belonging to Constantine or Teodosius? What is the exact reason why the found port Elefterion is under dirt or mud and the beach goes almost a thousand meters in a thousand years? Do earthquakes play a role in this? Did the excavations precisely determine the changes Constantine made to the borders of Istanbul during Septimus Severus?
And most importantly: What exactly has the activity in Yenikapı, which has been going on for six or seven years, changed the history of Istanbul? How far has rumors and legends been moved, and how have all these new finds resonated in world archaeological circles?
Istanbul, without advertising the work done for these and such questions, without crying and whining and obscuring the issue with technical concepts, everyone can understand, that is, clearly and clearly “We have found this, this, that, the history of the city has changed like this, that way” or “Yet to a conclusion. we could not arrive ”waiting for the answers that should be given ...