Showing posts with label Turkish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Turkish. Show all posts

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Things I learned from looking at Tents!

I really did come back from Turkey (sigh) and if you've been waiting for pictures your patience is about to begin to be rewarded!

I didn't spend as much time in the Military museum as I had hoped, but I was there long enough to learn some very important things:

Scale

The main support poles of the tents really are tree trunks. Easily 14" or more in diameter and TALL!

This example is only a portion, possibly half, of the eventual height of the structure. I love that you can see the broken end which would go into a connector piece (up at the top) and that they had a connector and final on display also.








Look at the size of the hole the pole would insert into.




And to give some idea of the scale of that finial...




I also found it interesting that some of the double polled tent that I expected to be huge were quite moderate in scale, maybe 7-9 feet high, while some of the viewing pavilions were easily 18-20' or more! (Talk about making a person feel,insignificant.)


Sewing

This example was fully appliqued over every inch of the interior, but only on the edges of the exterior, lovely! Most interesting, the exterior was assembled from a great many strips of fabric, probably about 7-8" wide running from top to bottom. I also love the patching!







And then there is the visible stitching. I think I could relax a bit about my work. :)




Details

I noticed that the red tent had side poles. And that they ran in a channel in the walls and thus didn't show either inside or out. I didn't notice side poles on any other tent, so I can't claim it is common, but it is such a nice idea!

And then there were the netting windows with large decorative knots worked in another material (I think it was leather)



and the lovely grille work on the opaque window on the Sultan's bath tent



And the worked cord loops for stakes




Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Maybee's are going to Turkey!

In my real life my Clarence and I (April) work in Academia and he has just had a paper accepted at a conference in Istanbul this fall. I am so excited for him on a professional level, but for me it means I get to celebrate my birthday in Turkey this year *and* (drumroll) spend about a week poking about the Military Museum studying their tent collection!

I really don't think I could be more excited!

I admit I've also been thinking about doing some shopping, particularly for oyas to use on a late period partlet, but first things first. Time to learn to speak a lot more Turkish. :)

Squee!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

More on Turkish tents

The Turkish Cultural Foundation has a page on mobile palaces with a bit of tent history and...more pictures!

http://www.turkishculture.org/pages.php?SearchID=753

Amazing how the web changes in two years!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Another site for extant tents

My mother has a bit of an adventurous streak in her, and in the late 80's she moved off to live in Turkey for about 10 years. Thus, when I told her about my interest in period pavillions she casually informed me that there is a collection of ancient tents and liners in the Turkish Millitary Museum in Istanbul, and then she gave me books!

(I can only find one of the books at the moment: Osmanli Cadir Sanati (XVII - XIX. yuzyli), Taciser Onuk, T.C. Kultur Bakanligi, 1998. In English: Ottoman Tent Art (XVII - XIX. centuries))

I, of course, devoured the books a gulp and rushed off to look up the Museum site, which I present to you here

Askeri Muse ve Kultur

Note: click on "Albumler" and then "Cadirlar" or, if you can find it, "Askerî Kıyafetler Salonu,' or "Üst Kat Salonlar" and then "Çadırlar Galerisi." I warn you, the links shown in the menu on the left of the page seem to change nearly every time I go to it. but keep trying. sometimes clicking on white space will make a whole new list of choices appear. (This works for me when the cursor, not the arrow is showing as the pointer.)

I managed to wend my way quite deeply into their photo galleries a few years ago, but then my computer crashed and I lost all the links so I am simply posting what I've got, for now.

I hope to get back to this on-line research project at some point, but for now I am making a pavillion! (Busy, busy.... :)

Note: see comments below for a bit more explanation of how I've found the pictures when the links aren't showing...

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Inspiration

A link to a site which has captured my imagination, answered my questions, and beguiled my time on many occasions...






Support disk after conservation

http://www.dhm.de/restauratoren/zelt/start.htm

It is the diary of the Deutsches Historisches Museum conservators restoration of a Turkish tent captured in 1683. (But dated earlier as I remember.) The links on the left go to German text, the ones on the right are in English.

Absolutely beautiful!

More importantly it is full of details on the materials, construction, conservation and erection of the pavilion.

And, as I said, absolutely beautiful!