In search of a Mediterranean creativity. Cultural and creative industries in Italy,Spain and Turkey

The Mediterranean region has been increasingly receiving attention in recent years. This is due to the heterogeneity of the countries composing it, which raises several problems in business collaborations, but also unfolds several cross-national economic opportunities among Mediterranean countries. The analysis of cultural and creative industries can be useful to show that this area has many similarities, making intercultural exchange and cross-national economic development possible. This research starts from the comparison of three main Mediterranean countries situated both in Europe and outside, Italy, Spain and Turkey, and aims at highlighting the most striking similarities and differences of their features. The creativity specialization found in this region is alike, which allows us to begin to discuss the idea of a Mediterranean creativity.     

A Late Bronze Age Ship from Liman Tepe with Reference to the Late Bronze Age Ships from İZMIR / Bademgediği Tepesi and Kos / Seraglio

In this article, a Mycenaean pottery sherd from Liman Tepe is discussed. The piece, which was locally produced, probably belongs to a ring‐based crater (FS 281). Comparisons with other, similar sherds suggest that warriors aboard a ship are depicted. As one of the few examples of its period decorated in this way, the sherd has been dated to the early or middle phase of LH III C, belonging to the period after the collapse of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia and the Mycenaean kingdoms in mainland Greece. The depictions on this sherd are highly significant, as they contribute to the corpus of evidence for migrations from the western to the eastern Mediterranean and the unrest which characterized the period.     

The Yenikapı Byzantine‐Era Shipwrecks,Istanbul, Turkey: a preliminary report and inventory of the 27 wrecks studied by Istanbul University

Salvage excavations conducted in the Yenikap? quarter of the historic peninsula of Istanbul by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums 2004–2013 have brought to light the Theodosian Harbour on the Sea of Marmara. In addition to thousands of archaeological artefacts, a total of 37 shipwrecks dating from the 5th to the 11th centuries AD were uncovered, constituting the biggest collection of medieval ships uncovered at a single excavation site. The present article deals with 27 wrecks in the charge of the team from Istanbul University's Department of Conservation of Marine Archaeological Objects, consisting of 23 merchantmen and four galleys. The wrecks are presented with their general characteristics. The preliminary evidence from the Yenikap? wrecks regarding the development from shell‐based to skeleton‐based philosophy is discussed, and various building phases presented.     

Examining the Impact of Turkey's Approach Vis‐à‐Vis Syria into Turkey's Iraq Policy

The tension between “international order” and justice has long been a focus of critical attention of many scholars. Today, with the rise of the humanitarian crises, the debate is once again visible, and Turkish foreign policy is one of the most important areas of observation of this tension. Indeed, the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq in 2003 paved the way for Turkey to actively engage in regional affairs. Meanwhile, the need to bring human justice into world politics makes Turkish foreign policy decision makers operate on a much more humanitarian basis. Nevertheless, active humanitarian engagement poses an important challenge to traditional Turkish foreign policy as it is mainly based on the notion of “non‐interference,” as well as on the elementary components of international order, by raising suspicions on the intentions of the Turkish authorities. This article aims to explore the challenges Turkey has been facing since the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq, and diagnose Turkish foreign policy vis‐à‐vis Iraq in the shadow of the Syrian civil war from Hedley Bull's framework of “order” and “justice.” It argues that Turkey's recent fluctuations in the Middle East could be linked to Turkey's failure to reconcile the requirements of “order” with those of “justice” and the Turkish governing party's (AKP) attempts to use justice as an important instrument to consolidate its power both in Turkey and in the Middle East.     

Reading between the lines: δ18O and δ13C isotopes of Unio elongatulus shell increments as proxies for local palaeoenvironments in mid-Holocene northern Syria

The much debated link between the collapse of urban centres in northern Syria and climate change at the end of third millennium bc is arguably one of the best known cases about human societies' struggle with the unpredictable nature of the Holocene. Fine-grained analyses of bioarchaeological materials offer excellent opportunities to overcome some of the difficulties encountered in such studies that tackle the effects of changing environmental and climatic conditions on human civilisations during the Holocene. This paper explains the results of a pilot study that uses archaeological freshwater clams (Unio elongatulus) from northern Syria as intermediary anthropobiogenic proxies to infer about the seasonal rhythms of local pluvial regimes and their possible fluctuations at the turn of the third millennium bc. Having secreted their CaCO₃ in chemical and periodical accordance with the ambient environment and ending up at tell sites through human activity, these bivalves are suitable vessels of information about human ecology in northern Syria at the end of third millennium bc. Marked differences were observed between the isotopic (δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C) compositions of shells from Tell Mozan, an urban site that continued to exist throughout the rapid climate event, and those from Tell Leilan, which went into hiatus at the end of third millennium bc. These results have important implications about the potentially severe effects of micro-environmental differences on distinct human communities inhabiting the same culturally unified region.     

Treaty of Zohab, 1639: Foundational Myth or Foundational Document?

Beginning with their first confrontation in 1514, the Ottomans and the dynasties ruling over Iran fought over the borderlands extending from the Persian Gulf to Mount Ararat. The transformation of this indeterminate borderland into a clearly defined and increasingly monitored border took almost four centuries. It became an internationally recognized border only after seven decades (1843–1914) of intermittent work by mixed international commissions. Despite such a tangled history, a well-entrenched tradition of Middle Eastern history suggests that the Iranian–Ottoman frontier was firmly established by the Qasr-i Shirin/Zohab Treaty of 1639; and it is one of the oldest boundaries of the world. The myth of 1639 is powerfully enshrined in the historiographies and nationalisms of the countries sharing this boundary. Questioning this myth in the light of Ottoman–Iranian relations, this paper analyzes different versions of 1639 Treaty that were brought to boundary negotiations and exist in various chronicles, and suggests an alternative reading of this foundational myth.     

Soft power in Turkish foreign policy

This article examines to what extent Turkey's foreign policy identity has transformed from being a ‘hard power’ to a ‘soft power’ over the last few years. In doing so, this article also contends that there is a close relationship between the degree of securitisation of issues and whether the power used to deal with them is hard or soft in nature. If issues of concern were securitised, the tendency to use hard power would increase. Another argument is that the main difference between these two types of power stems from the kind of ‘logic of action’ that governs the behaviour of agents. If an instrumental logic of action were in play, meaning if the goal were to force others to make a cost-benefit analysis through coercing or coaxing strategies, then one could talk about hard power. If the goal were to ensure that others would automatically follow the lead of the power-holder due to the power of attraction the latter has in the eyes of the former, then one could refer to the existence of soft power. The main conclusion of this article is that recent internal and external developments have contributed to Turkey's soft power potential.     

The Limits of Turkish–Iranian Cooperation, 1974–80

Why did Turkey and Iran fail to become close partners in the 1970s even though they had compelling reasons to do so? This article argues that mutual distrust between Turkish and Iranian leaders, domestic turmoil in the two countries, and diverging geostrategic priorities undermined Ankara and Tehran's efforts to deepen their relations. While the shah of Iran saw his country as the policeman of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, successive governments in Turkey continued to look west for their security. As economic and political turmoil engulfed the two countries, leading to a revolution in Iran in 1979 and a coup in Turkey in 1980, Iranian and Turkish leaders could not forge a lasting partnership.