Tag Archives: turkey

Turkey – Canakkale

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Pop Quiz: how do you pronounce the above name?

Because Turkey uses the Latin alphabet instead of the cursive Arabic script, it seems as though we should know how to pronounce it. But the Turkish language has some marks on the letters that change the pronunciation. So, the above is pronounced Cha -Knock-lee.

This is the site of Troy, the city featured in the Iliad. To me, the amazing thing about the ruins is the many strata of constant human habitation going all the way back to the Neolithic. Access to water, a fertile plain and elevation, from which to see approaching people, were all necessary features.

Troy was only one of the many communities.

When one walks through the ruins, the different levels are very apparent, although there is some mixing. Sometimes the floors fell through into the lower level. Also, the walls show that newer groups built on the walls and other structures that came before.

The movie, Troy, with Brad Pitt was filmed here in 2003. There are two horses, one in front of the site, and one in town that was gifted by the movie crew. Of the two, the second is the most believable.

Ephesus, Turkey

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Turkey, or Turkiye as they prefer, surprised me in many ways. One of the first surprises was the prevalence of Virgin Mary, or Mother Mary – their name – statues. Turkey is a Moslem country, after all, although very secular. Mary, the story goes, moved with St, John to Turkey after the crucifixion and lived there. No one knows exactly where. But she and St. John proselytized from Turkey. We also saw the ruins of the church where he was buried. The Pope moved the body to the Vatican in the sixties.

Moving to yet another faith, we saw the last remaining pillar for the Temple of Artemis. Some of the posts were used in the Sofia Hagida in Istanbul. The removal of previously used stones, pillars, murals, pretty much anything you can name, and put into new structures has a long and ancient history.

Turkey, all of the Mediterranean countries, are really at the crossroads of civilization and groups have swept over these areas over and over and over. More about Turkiye next post.

Thanksgiving in 1801

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Although we modern folk are used to celebrating Thanksgiving on the same day and eat a menu that is the ‘traditional’ fare, Rees and his family would not know of many of these customs Since George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide Thanksgiving in 1789, but it was not an official yearly celebration until 1863 when it was established by Abraham Lincoln.

Since there was no nationwide date chosen, the dates of observance varied from state to state. By the early eighteen hundreds, however, Thanksgiving was customarily celebrated on the fourth Thursday. FDR tried to change it to the third Thursday to lengthen the time for Christmas shopping but there was so much outcry, he reversed his decision.

The first holiday was a religious once and for over two hundred years the activities included church as well as a hearty meal.

While we are talking about the meal, no one is quite sure if the Pilgrims ate turkey. (Most likely, they ate venison and wild ducks for their meal.) Cranberry sauce had been invented in the sixteen sixties but potatoes were unknown. Pumpkin pie, on the other hand, has a long history. Pumpkins were made into pies in Tudor England. Most of the sources I’ve read theorize that the Pilgrims and early settlers did not eat pumpkin pie as they did not have the butter and flour for the crust. In fact, pumpkin pie did not become a traditional part of the holiday feast until the early nineteenth century.turkey