Displacement,memory and home(less) identities: Turkish Cypriot women’s narratives

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the narratives of Turkish Cypriot women in the north of Cyprus who were displaced during the ethnic conflict between the 1950s and 1974. We have conducted 21 interviews with Turkish Cypriot women who were living in different parts of Northern Cyprus. We used oral history, both as a method and as an epistemological stance to re-phrase the near past of Cyprus and the Cyprus issue from the perspective of gender/women’s studies. The study follows the traces of modernity, patriarchy, and nationalism in women’s narratives, about the place, home, belonging and homelessness. The narratives describe Turkish Cypriot women’s experiences of being a woman in conflict and displacement (‘göçmen olmak’ in daily talk in Turkish) making a home out of a house and undertaking daily routines for their families. The study also reveals that ethnic conflict and displacement have empowered women to a certain degree.     

Multi-Isotope Investigations for Scientific Characterisation and Provenance Implication of Banded Travertines from Tripolis Antique City (Denizli–Turkey)

The coloured stones used in buildings and monuments were an indicator of power and wealth during the ancient times. In this study, Tripolis city samples have been compared with Tripolis quarry samples in order to recognise the provenance of the banded travertine blocks in the ancient city. The banded travertine samples have similar mineral compositions and mainly consist of calcite with minor amounts of dolomite, aragonite, clay and iron oxide minerals. These results are also supported by CRS studies. Calcite is in the form of needle-shaped crystals ranging between 0.163–1.418?mm (in city) and 0.303–1.270?mm (in quarry). Tripolis banded travertine samples show the similar compositional spread in terms of major oxide, trace elements. δ¹³C_V-PDB values of banded travertines range from 1.93 to 5.25‰ (in city) and 2.99 to 3.99‰ (in quarry), δ¹⁸O_V-PDB values change between (?16.93)–(?10.08) ‰ and (?15.93)–(?13.01)‰, respectively. The U–Th radiometric ages are determined between ～267 and 9?ka in Tripolis city samples and ～350 and 2?ka in Tripolis quarry samples. The minero-petrographic, geochemical, C–O and U–Th isotope results fairly matched with each other. It seems highly probable that the banded travertines in Tripolis city were extracted from the Tripolis quarry, which is located at the northeast of the antique city with a distance of 3?km.