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Monday, August 29, 2011

Photos from Gaziantep and Sanliurfa


Tacky rugs with Turkish politicians and Che Guevara in Gaziantep.



Doorway in Gaziantep bazaar


Spices and tobacco for sale


Copper goods for sale


Gaziantep's bazaar


CREEPY TORSOS


Guys hanging out in the cool archway of an old caravanserai



A tea garden filled with men near a domed mosque


The interior of the lovely Tahmis Kahvesi in Gaziantep



Sanliurfa, thought to be the birthplace of Abraham



These carp symbolize the saving of Abraham from King Nimrod - when he tried to burn Abraham alive, the flames turned to water, the coal to fish, and Abraham was cast into a bed of roses. There is a rose garden nearby.


More sacred carp


Sacred carp are quite photogenic you see



Back lanes of Sanliurfa



A doorway in Sanliurfa



Child labor is pretty common here - you get ten year olds as shop attendants, fare collectors and errand boys, including kids who seriously run entire shops while the boss is out.



You see a lot of signs like this, or justcalligraphy, over doorways in Sanliurfa and beyond. Sanliurfa is a very religious Muslim city.



Kids playing in Sanliurfa's bazaar



The "New" Mosque (it's not that new - in Turkey "less than a thousand years old" is basically "new")



We ate dinner at a pretty good restaurant cut into the steps of a cliff behind this mosque, and this was the view from our table.



Gobekli-Tepe - not much to look at, but this is the first known temple to have been built. ANYWHERE. It is 11,000 years old, meaning it is Neolithic...yes, you read that right, Neolithic. Until it was excavated nobody had thought that pre-farming people were capable of creating something like this and to this day nobody is quite sure how they did it.



It's a toy, but still an interesting thing to see out on the street. Even little girls have toy pistols here.


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