Turkish Cultural Artifacts

Turkish Cultural Artifacts

By:Mert Tekdemir

Carpets

Weaving is very famous in Turkey. There are a lot of weavers that weave hand made carpets, curtains etc. In Turkey. It is a very difficult part of arts and crafts that very special to Turkey and its culture. People of the Turkish nations have made this an art, if you go to places like the grand bazar you will find many hand made carpets for sale. Carpets are so special in the Turkish culture that they even pry on them. Most of the hand woven carpets have a special old designs on them but you can also find some with more modern designs like a football team or Ataturk. It is considered “clean” to have carpets in your house and most people do whether its because they think it clean or for the beauty most people have it in there houses in Turkey.

Clay and Glass Pottery

Another very famous piece of art and crafts that the Turkish culture includes is pottery. Whether its glass or clay the Turkish culture has always included pottery like vases, pots, plates etc. Even if you were to go to a Turkish museum more than half of the artifacts are pots and vases. Turkish culture makes really beautiful pots and vases, with really high prices and most cultural people in Turkey have a vase like this. I think it was a way to express themselves in the old day that turned into a habit in the Turkish culture. The vases can be really expensive pricing up to over 100 TL.

Turkish Signature Forging

In the Turkish culture one of the many arts is forging signatures. There are many words that get forged into a signature. Mostly the names of Osman kings or very special people. There are also certain words that are forged into signatures like the word “maasallah” which means something like “praise be” in a rough translation. Some of the signatures made in olden days can be found in museums or places. You can also find more recent ones for sale in stores or in peoples homes. These signatures are considered art and are very hard to create.

The Evil Eye

Despite its name the evil eye is not evil. It is actually quite the contrary, it actually protects you from an evil eye. Because in the Turkish culture we belive that if someone is jealous of you or envies you something bad will happen. So for example if you have like the latest laptop and don’t have the evil eye in your house or wherever the laptop is something bad will happen to it like slow down or break or whatever. So pretty much every Turkish person buys one or has one in there house or on a keychain or at least has a relation with one. It is supposed to draw away the evil eye onto it so nothing you own is effected by it. The evil eye is very strong in Turkish symbolism.

Basketball

Even though basketball is a very recent part of the Turkish culture it is still part of it. In Turkey pretty much every one plays basketball. Even if they don’t they still know how to. Turkey is a very sportive country in ways of soccer and basket ball for example they came second in FIBA world cup. Basketball is part of the Turkish culture I think because all country’s have a sport in their culture like England has soccer, India has cricket, America has basketball and so on. I think every country needs a sport to be serious about and add to their modern culture and what's better than sports? Basketball has become one of the specialties of Turkey just like art and crafts. Anything can be part of a countries culture.