April 9 more Ankara

Walking from the Anatolian Culture to the Ethnographic Museum, we followed a map without minor street names on minor streets. Once again, we found ourselves in a wedding supply district where gowns and linens, pots and rugs, appliances and men's dress outfits were all sold from stores with awninged fronts covering the street its entire length. Evidently, the food vendors were celebrities here also. At the Ethnic, a re-purposed Ottoman summer house, not for a poor family, evidently, is a wing dedicated to dioramas of nineteenth century clothing styles (also for the wealthy). The photo of the elaborate wedding scene was marred by excessive reflections of other exhibits, but was a favorite for the wedding specialist in our party. Here are two gents decked out in their regional splendor, Karadeniz and Erzurum, and two women practicing to be diverting at court. The diorama showing copper-smithing showed the fellow at an awkward moment when he seems to have forgotten all of his training about how to hold his hammer and position his workpiece. The tools are beautiful and almost identical to one Jim owns as a silversmith. The vase on the inset is ceramic, but has a delightful form. The décor is nicely laid out, but a bit fussy by somebody's standards. There was some terrific calligraphy that did not photograph well and just stunning wood-carving, three ornate minbars, and this incredible mihrab. (That's 'stairway to pulpit' and 'niche facing Mecca'.) When Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal), general, first president and founding statesman of modern Turkey died in office in 1938, it was here that his coffin laid in state, until 1953, when the permanent Mausoleum on the hill was completed, seen in the inset from the Ethnographic's balustrade. Next up Konya, and Çatalhöyük itself, spelled right this time, pronunciation forthcoming.