#check out atikal

[grinbrothers]

Agreed on both accounts. Shiragiku was a great character with a intriguing appearance every time. Her ending/route is the one I always felt was right out of Ren's options.

Great artwork by the way; neat diagonal angle with a great flow to her sleeves. Her red gaze is piercing.

Underrated antagonist. Loved the "In the Reliquary Ending" as I felt it brought her some well deserved closure on her own terms.

[ottomanladies]

Thanks! Basically I didnt check in these recent months your inbox is opened or not! Still very grateful to you! :) Anyway, I want to ask you details about Nurbanu Sultans reign during her son Murats period. How she acted and have impact on her sons decision! Please do write in detail! I herad that Pinaar"s book "atik valide sultan mosque" is a great source of her, if you can please do qoute from here! Have a good day! :)

I am sorry for the late reply but I am sick and writing basically a historiography essay is quite hard at the moment. Just so you know, I'm not even studying for my university exams, so that's where I am.

Now back to your question. I don't know how in detail I will be able to go because the dissertation you mentioned is not about her tenure as valide sultan but about her mosque complex.

That said, Nurbanu started out her tenure as valide sultan unofficially on the night of Selim II's death, when she decided to hide his body while sending out a messenger to call Murad back to Istanbul. This was done primarily because in Topkapi Palace lived Selim II's younger sons; while Murad had been proclaimed heir, he was the only prince far from Istanbul at the moment of Selim's death. This is the reason why Nurbanu was extra careful about it.

Upon the judgment of the mother of Sultan Murad—may God protect his felicity—no one was made privy to this secret [except Sokollu] and the blessed body was preserved in the ice room. On the advice of the Grand Vizier, full of prudence and sound judgment, a letter indicating the termination as well as the commencement of sovereignty was sent to Manisa through Hasan Çavuş. Meanwhile Admiral Kilıç Ali Pasha outfitted a frigate and a reserve and set out to sea [to pick up Murad from Mudanya]. — Selaniki

Murad arrived in Istanbul after 5 days, at night, and at dawn, everything was ready for his coronation. According to Finkel, Nurbanu had retired to the Old Palace when he docked at Istanbul, and that's where she met him.

Two days afterwards, Nurbanu was ceremoniously brought to Topkapi Palace as Valide Sultan.

Tradition also places in Murad's reign the inception of what became in later years the processional transfer, shortly after a sultan's accession, of the valide sultan and other members of the new sultan's harem from the Old Palace to the harem quarters in the New Palace. Known as "the procession of the valide sultan" (valide alayı), this event developed in later centuries into an elaborate ceremonial. Virtually all echelons of the governing elite were represented in the procession: the palace hierarchy as well as the outer administration, the military establishment as well as the religious institution. As the procession made its way across the city of Istanbul, the valide sultan received the obeisance of the agha of the Janissaries and in turn distributed bonuses to his troops (much as the sultan, upon his accession, customarily granted an accession bonus to these troops). The valide sultan was received in the palace by her son, who awaited her on foot and greeted her with obeisance (an honor accorded by the sultan to no other person). She marked her installation in her new office and residence by dispatching to the grand vezir on the day after the procession an imperial order giving him formal notice of her arrival, which she accompanied with the gift of a ceremonial robe of honor and a dagger. The symbolism of this ceremonial suggests that its purpose was to give public sanction to the valide sultan's role not only as the head of her son's private household but also as a partner in sultanic sovereignty. While this ceremonial as it was constructed for Nurbanu (if indeed it did occur as such during Murad Ill's reign) may not have been of the scale it later acquired, the fact that tradition accepted the valide sultan's procession as having originated with her testifies to the authority she exercised. — Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Foreign relations

An undated letter from Catherine de' Medici was sent to Nurbanu (presumably early in Murad's reign); in it, the regent of France hoped to have the Capitulations confirmed (every time a new sultan acceded to the throne, foreign treaties had to be re-confirmed).

It is not known whether Nurbanu actually responded to this letter, but from the continual laments of Catherine’s ambassador Jacques de Germigny to the effect that he mustered scanty attention from the Queen Mother, it appears that the relations between the two realms never rose to the level it had attained in the first half of the century. — Pinar Kayaalp-Aktan, The Atik Valide Mosque Complex: A testament of Nurbanu's prestige, power and piety

A warmer relationship was Nurbanu's with Venice and its ambassadors. She was on amicable terms with Jacopo Soranzo but most especially Paolo Contarini. It was him who convinced the Venetian Senate to send Nurbanu gifts.

In that letter, Contarini reminds the Senators how lucky they should consider themselves that this powerful Sultana cherished the most cordial memories for the land in which she was born, to which sentiment the Most Serene Republic ought to respond with commensurate generosity. Contarini’s position did not change in the aftermath of the delivery of the presents and his eventual return to Venice. [...] In Contarini’s opinion, the Valide Sultan should be regarded as the most appropriate recipient of such gifts, since she “is interested not in the quality of the donatives, but in the attestation of your esteem, which she yearns to be shown to her from all [foreign] princes, but especially from Your Serenity, since she was born in this city.” — Pinar Kayaalp-Aktan, The Atik Valide Mosque Complex: A testament of Nurbanu's prestige, power and piety

Nurbanu's relationship with Venice remained warm throughout her life, even after Murad's had cooled down.

Shortly before her death, the valide sultan may have performed her greatest service to her homeland by preventing a possible Ottoman invasion of Crete, a Venetian possession. Upon learning that the admiral Kilıç Ali Pasha planned to propose such an invasion as one of a number of possible plans for the following year, Nurbanu sent word to him that under no circumstances should war be waged against Venice, since that would bring more harm than good to the sultan's realm. In addition, she warned that in no way was the admiral to raise the possibility with Murad. On his way to his audience with the sultan, the admiral dropped the paper carrying the proposal, and when one of his attendants picked it up and returned it to him, he tore it up, saying that it was no longer of any use since the valide sultan opposed its contents." — Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Political involvement

Not everyone liked that Nurbanu counselled Murad on basically everything: both the army and the ulema said to Venetian ambassadors that the sultan trusted the government of the empire "to those who are not meritorious, just because he heeds the counsel of women". The ulema, on the other hand, said that the sultan "was of little intelligence, unpredictable, and one who could not do anything without the counsel of women". This what the French Ambassador said of Nurbanu:

[the valide sultan] who is currently called Queen, for her great prudence, authority, and esteem at this Porte in managing the affairs of importance ... allows the pashas to mete out all the favors and principal offices of this state, taking away and sharing with her Highness the [concomitant] payments, with which the said pashas enrich themselves without remitting even one asper to the treasury. The aforementioned Seigneur, [Murad], does not see any wickedness in all this, out of his love and respect that he has for his mother, as well as his avarice and desire to accumulate money. — French ambassador Jacques de Germigny

It must be said, though, that he was particularly bitter because at the Ottoman court he was largely ignored.

Nevertheless, Murad III continued to trust her mother's advice:

Of the post-Suleymanic sultans, Murad III was one of the most devoted to his mother and dependent upon her counsel. According to Paolo Contarini, who submitted his report to the Venetian government shortly before Nurbanu's death in December 1583, Murad's mother was the person on whom he most relied for guidance: "[He bases] his policies principally on the advice of his mother, it appearing to him that he could have no other advice as loving and loyal as hers, hence the reverence which he shows toward her and the esteem that he hears for her unusual qualities and many virtues. — Leslie P. Peirce. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Nurbanu also secured appointments for members of her faction: two were particularly frowned upon because they had been two cooks. Ferhad and Çiğalazade Yusuf were first elevated to the rank of Paşa and then appointed "serdar of the eastern campaign and beylerbeyi of Revan".

Safiye Sultan

According to Paolo Contarini, the main reason why Nurbanu decided to neutralise Safiye was purely political: Safiye had begun to gather a faction around her (most notably Ayşe Hümaşah, Mihrimah's daughter, and her husband, the second vizier). The dismissal of Grand Vizier Sinan Paşa in 1582 was done for the same reason:

I personally believe that the Sultana’s reason to ruin Sinan Pasha was not so that she could promote this favorite Agha in his place: it was because she wanted to take vengeance for the words uttered by Sinan that empires cannot be governed through women’s counsel, [and moreover that authority did not rest with her, even though she might try to make it seem so, but rather with the sultana consort.] Thus, to conclude this argument without further divergence, I say that all the good and all the bad depends on the Valide Sultan.

I combined Peirce's and Kayaalp-Aktan's translations because Peirce's lacked the first part of the sentence and Kayaalp-Aktan's had mistakes in the middle.

Probably around this time as well, Nurbanu and her daughter Ismihan successfully divided Murad and Safiye's monogamous relationship:

A vexing incident of some importance has occurred these days concerning the Most Serene Signor [Murad] and his wife ... [I]t is common knowledge that... this Most Serene Signor ... has never wished to get intimate with any other woman though he has been constantly solicited by his mother and sisters to have children from another wife. Not succeeding to achieve this objective, they resorted to presenting beautiful female slaves to excite [Murad]. However, they have not succeeded to persuade him to change his will, since he is very much in love with his wife ... [Ismihan], seeing that [Safiye] got ugly and could no longer have children—not to mention that she is in great favor of the Gran-Signor and that she challenges the authority of the Mother Sultan, which is [considered] a very insolent thing among this people— invited [her brother] on the day the Mother Sultan would return from the baths to sojourn in a palace of [Ismihan’s] a little outside the walls of Constantinople. The Most Serene Signor, having received the invitation, immediately showed up to see his mother and to spend that night with her and his sister, leaving his wife with his son in a palace called Cinque Case [Beşevler] belonging to Her Majesty [Nurbanu]. The occasion of having her son unaccompanied by his wife helped the Mother Sultan to renew the proposal she made on many cases previously that he should produce male children with other women, since [Safiye] could have no chance of having any. And seeing that [Murad] was firm in the same decision, [Ismihan and Nurbanu] began saying that this resolution was the result of a spell cast by his wife, reminding him that many women dealing in witchcraft frequented [the Harem]. The Gran-Signor laughed it off...

In any case, when Murad returned to Topkapi the following morning, he prohibited Safiye to have visitors from outside. Nurbanu then produced a letter for Safiye in which it was mentioned an aphrodisiac; at this point, Murad started believing the accusations of witchcraft and ordered Safiye, her daughters and her servants to move to the Old Palace.

Thus Safiye was dealt with, and Nurbanu was now the only high ranking woman in the harem.

Mehmed's circumcision fest

In this same period, Şehzade Mehmed - the future Mehmed III - was circumcised.

Nurbanu is reported to have arrived in a procession of fifty-three vehicles to watch the celebration through the red lattices of the raised pavilion facing the first courtyard allocated for the female members of the imperial harem. In the following year, Nurbanu witnessed the ceremony inaugurating the commencement of her grandson’s political career and the completion of her grand philanthropic work, the Atik Valide Mosque Complex. The year 1583 simultaneously marked the high point of Nurbanu’s hegemony over the Harem, having banished Safiye and her faction to the Palace of Tears. Unfortunately, however, the Valide Sultan’s health took a bad turn. — Pinar Kayaalp-Aktan, The Atik Valide Mosque Complex: A testament of Nurbanu's prestige, power and piety

Nurbanu's death

On 6 December 1583, the Sultan, clad in black, hurried to Bahçesaray the moment he received the word that his mother was in her deathbed. There Nurbanu made her last testament, leaving two thirds of her wealth to Murad and the rest to her pious foundation, not counting some miscellaneous bequeathals. She died the following morning, with Murad at her bedside. He was inconsolable at the loss of his mother, as demonstrated by his throwing off his turban on the floor and sobbing that he was now an orphan, without help and counsel to carry the heavy burden of the empire. The news of Nurbanu’s death spread rapidly throughout Istanbul. The public reaction was that which would be accorded to the death of a padishah to the extent that Murad ordered the Head of the Janissaries and high-ranking officers to take measures against their troops’ looting the capital as they customarily would upon a sultan’s passing. A citywide curfew was simultaneously declared requiring the immediate closing of all stores and the Bedesten. The funeral procession was also of the magnitude accorded to a sultan. Murad, in his black mourning robe, led his mother’s coffin on foot up to the front gate of the palace, where he mounted his horse and trot behind the procession, with his viziers, commanders, and the ulema behind him. The black eunuchs carried the Queen Mother’s coffin on their shoulders from Nurbanu’s palace in Yenikapi to her final resting place. — Pinar Kayaalp-Aktan, The Atik Valide Mosque Complex: A testament of Nurbanu's prestige, power and piety

Nurbanu was buried next to Selim II in his mausoleum, the first consort to have been accorded this honour.

Please do not ask me again such questions, it took me at least 4 days and at the end I was pretty tired, as you can tell. I understand that not everyone has the chance to read these papers but I cannot make a summary of a 300-page dissertation and go in detail. It's like doing homework

[fuckyeahgreatplays]

I'm looking to read more plays by female authors. Who are your favorite female playwrights? I'm currently reading How I Learned to Drive, by Paula Vogel

That’s a good one! I’d also check out her Baltimore Waltz, and of course Indecent. 

Annie Baker is probably my current favorite. But I also love Young Jean Lee, Anne Kauffman, Lynn Nottage, Naomi Iizuka, Lucy Thurber, Halley Feiffer, and Chiara Atik. 

@asteptowardhope just reminded me that I have seen and enjoyed all Martyna Majok’s plays recently so I’d definitely add her!

[joys-bookshelf]

Rating: 4

Re-Read Factor: No

Genre: contemporary, fiction

Our children deserve better.

This book was a lot to handle but not necessarily in a bad way. Differentiating between the eight parents and their kids took some getting used to, and even then it wasn't until halfway through the book that I figured out who was who and whose kid was whose. There must be a good number over 10 character POVs, so, yes, a good amount of time to figure out people.

Onto the book, Holsinger captures the essence of family dynamics regarding their children's academics and constant comparisons to other people's children. Fostered competition as with the four women and their families versus Atik's family fostering his growth was a sight to behold and definitely difficult to put to words, but Holsinger was able to do so exceptionally.

The author also does a fantastic job illustrating the intricacies of how little lies and actions can spiral out of control. The lengths these parents go through just to ensure their children attain top-notch scores and grades just to reflect on their status as a good parent and thensome. Furthermore, he is able to describe the characters in a way that highlights that their drive is what traps them to make such spiraling mistakes and that anyone could end up like per se Rose, dangling little lies to enhance her daughter's application. Not to mention, Beck's money problems. 50k tuition for each twin. An Audi car. Bouncing checks. Exponential debt? It truly shows how stress can forever increase and can be end of you.

I must say that Holsinger's depiction of emotional issues is very well developed. From Aidan, not Charlie, being the one with the anger issues to Lauren's out-of-context add-ons . . . The complexity of all of them intertwined was perceptive and sophisticated to the times. Overall, The Gifted School is a remarkable book detailing the competitive culture in academia and education in today's society, spanning from not only college students but even down to fifth grade, where students parallel their parents' zeal for "merit-based" success and achievement.

[gracrps]

TAGGED BY: @electricinndigo ( i love being tagged in these :’) thanks hon ;* ) RULES: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to get to know better.

1. nicknames: jusss syd! 2. gender: female 3. star sign: cancer 4. Height: 5′2′’ 5. time: 12:40pm 6. birthday: july 5th 7. favorite bands: umum at the top of my head… queen forever, hillsong united/young&free, paramore always always always, etc etc etc! 8. favorite solo artists: again, at the top of my head… john mayer, lorde, animé, my bf harry styles, etc etc etc~ 9. song stuck in my head: alive by pearl jam lmfao  10. last movie I watched: lmfao no one come for me i decided to check out descendants 1 & 2. i feel weird bc im like /old/ but i like the concept so… fight me  11. last show I watched: im binging soa & the secret life of the american teenager atm! 12. when did I create my blog: oh wow um… for this blog specifically, oct 2016! but ginvs (my indie before this one was created) was since january 2014. i was an rph back then, and somewhere along the way.. perhaps in 2016 i converted it into an indie! 13. what do I post: indie stuff, gif hunts ocassionally, graphics rarely? 14. last thing I googled: what time wendys closes lmfao 15. do you have any other blogs: i have a private one that has gifs i’ve hunted just for me, but otherwise, nope! 16. do you get asks: rarely! lol 17. why did you choose your url: at the time, i was binging charmed and it just stuck! i love it, and although i’m usually very indecisive and change my url like 100000 times, i’m pretty sure this one will stick <3 18. following: 134 19. followers: 101 21. average hours of sleep: probably 4-6 22. lucky number: don’t got one! 23. Instruments: guitar, bass if i practice! 24. what am I wearing: ooo okay i don’t know how to describe, but since i’m at work, i tried my best to not look like trash lol. i’m wearing these flowy beige pants that have slights up to my mid-thigh. give the illusion that it’s a skirt! i have an olive-ish top, cutout shoulders with nike sneakers lol.  26. dream job: screen writer / tv writer / -lowkey- actress lol / youtber if i can get over my insecurities / -lowkey- plus size model lmao 27. dream trip: canada, hawaii, nyc, florida (if the lines to the amusement parts are dead lol and the weather isn’t terrible), the pinas, thailand, japan, s.korea, england, rome, italy… honestly anywhere that isn’t the states lol. 28. favorite food: omg i love so many things. cajun food, kbbq, street tacos, burritos, quesadillas, esquites, some thai food, some filipino, pastas, fried chicken… fuck im hungry as hell LOL 29. nationality: american, ethnicity: thai / filipino 30. favorite song right now: honestly it’s a constant cycle of the new paramore album, amor prohibido / como la flor / bidi bidi bom bom by selena, bills bills bills / cater 2 u by destinys child, pero atik ra by jackie chang, a little too late by jojo, and falling into you / glimmer in the dust by hillsong. i have so many playlist on spotify for different moods, lol. 

           honestly theres no one left to tag… LOL

[astrogeoguy]

Orion’s Nebula, view Vesta, Maximum Morning Mercury, Moon meets Jupiter, and Venus Charges Mars!

(Above: The Orion Nebula (M42) and Messier 43 at centre, and the Running Man Nebula at the top of the frame, are revealed in this widefield long exposure image by Manuel Guerrero of Toronto, Canada)

Astronomy “Skylights” for the week (from January 15th) by Chris Vaughan. All the times mentioned are Eastern Standard Time. If you are a camp, or a teacher interested in a guided field trip to the David Dunlap Observatory, visit www.astrogeo.ca.

News

My latest columns for Space.com preview the best astronomy sights for 2017. You can find part one here and part two here.

The Moon and Planets

For the first half of this week, the moon will flood our evening skies with light from on high, while it wanes and rises later each night. In the wee hours of Thursday morning, the moon will rise with Jupiter – sitting only two finger widths to the left (north) of the bright planet. They’ll make a nice binocular sight until the sky lightens around 7 am, when they’ll be due south. On Thursday afternoon the moon reaches Last Quarter, when it’s half illuminated (on the left). Last Quarter moons always rise about midnight and linger into the daytime morning sky. Finally, on Sunday, January 22, the old crescent moon will make a pretty sight in the eastern pre-dawn sky.

Venus continues as the brilliantly bright object visible every evening in the western sky, until it sets around 9:15 pm local time. In a telescope, Venus is showing a “half-moon” shape (phase) this week. Because the evening Ecliptic continues to tilt higher as we slide towards spring, Venus will be carried a bit higher in the evening sky before starting to sink into the sunset next month. Believe it or not, it has not yet reached peak brightness!

Meanwhile, reddish Mars makes a steady march towards Venus this week, the two planets closing to within 6° (about a palm’s width) by next Sunday. Mars sets about 9:50 pm local time. Rounding out the evening planets, blue-green Uranus is halfway up the southwestern sky at dusk - just inside the western (right) arm of the “V” of Pisces the Fishes. The planet sets about 12:30 am local time.  Recently it has formed a nice little triangle with two of Pisces’ stars, the double star Zeta and 88 Piscium. Uranus (the blue-green object) sits about a pinky finger width (40 arc-minutes) to the upper left of the two stars. Tiny Neptune is in Aquarius the Water-bearer, a few degrees to the lower right of Venus, and it sets about 9 pm local time. 

(Above: The evening planets, shown at 7:45 pm local time on January 18, 2017.)

This is the last week when bright, white Jupiter will be rising in the east after midnight local time. Next week, it officially transitions to an evening object! This winter, it’s been sitting just a few finger widths above the bright white star Spica in Virgo the Maiden. By daybreak, it’s moved above the southern horizon. Saturn is rising this week about 5:15 am local time. You should easily see its yellowish dot low in the east for half an hour before sunrise, while the sky is still dark.

On Thursday, January 19, before dawn, Mercury will reach its greatest angle west of the sun, and reach maximum visibility for this apparition. Mercury is now sitting about 10° to the lower left of Saturn. If you can find a low eastern horizon, look for the planet between about 6:30 and 6:50 am local time. With Mercury just a bit higher than a shallow ecliptic, this apparition is less than ideal for northern hemisphere observers (the next excellent one happens on April 1), but quite good, seen from the southern hemisphere. 

(Above: The old moon joins Jupiter and the morning planets on January 19, 2017, shown at 6:30 am local time.)

Dwarf Planet Vesta, anyone?

On Tuesday, January 17, the large asteroid Vesta reaches opposition, the date when it is closest to earth and brightest for the year. It is sitting high in the evening sky, just below the twin stars of Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Its proper designation is (4) Vesta because it was the fourth asteroid discovered, by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807. It is named after the Roman goddess of home and hearth, Vesta. At apparent magnitude 6.1, the asteroid is observable with unaided eyes (under really dark skies), binoculars, and small telescopes. Its motion through the background stars can be noted by observing it on separate evenings. 

(Above: Vesta’s motion through the background stars can be seen by observing it on separate evenings, shown here from Nov 1, 2016 to Mar 5, 2017)

Orion Nebula

Last week, we toured most of Orion the Hunter’s major stars (read it here). This time, we’ll focus on his majestic sword, one of winter’s true astronomical treats. The sword hangs well below Orion’s distinctive three-starred belt. Unaided eyes can generally detect three patches of light in Orion’s sword, but binoculars or a telescope quickly reveal that the middle object is not a star at all, but a bright knot of glowing gas and stars known as The Orion Nebula (or the Great Nebula in Orion or Messier 42, aka M42). For best seeing, pick an evening when the moon rises late or is out of the sky – as it will be next week!

The Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the entire night sky and, at 1,400 light-years distant, it is one of the closest star-forming nurseries to us. It’s enormous. Under a very dark sky, the nebula can be traced over an area equivalent to four Full Moons!

Buried in the core of the nebula is a tight clump of stars collectively designated Theta Orionis (Orionis is Latin for “of Orion”), but better known as The Trapezium, because the brightest four stars occupy the corners of a trapezoid shape. Even a small telescope should be able to pick out this four-star asterism, but good seeing conditions and a larger aperture scope will show another two faint stars. The trapezium stars are hot young O- and B-type stars that are emitting intense amounts of ultraviolet radiation. The radiation causes the gas they are embedded in to shine brightly, by both reflecting off gas and dust as blue light and also by energizing Hydrogen gas, which is re-emitted as red light. That is why there is so much purple in colour images of the nebula.

Within the nebula, astronomers have also detected many young (about 100,000 years old) concentrations of collapsing gas called proplyds that should one day form future solar systems. These objects give us a glimpse into how our sun and planets formed.

Stargazers have long known about the stars in the nebula’s core, but detection of the nebulosity around them required the invention of telescopes in the early 1600’s. In the 1700’s, Charles Messier and Edmund Halley (both famous comet observers) noted the object in their growing catalogues of “fuzzy” objects. In 1880, Henry Draper imaged it through an 11-inch refractor telescope, making it the first deep sky object to be photographed.

In your own small telescope, you should see the bright clump of Trapezium stars surrounded by a ghostly grey shroud, complete with bright veils and dark gaps. More photons would need to be delivered to your eye before colour would be observed, so try photographing it through your telescope or a camera/telephoto lens on a tripod. Visually, start with low magnification and enjoy the extent of the cloud before zooming in on the tight asterism. Can you see four stars, or more? Just to the upper left of M42, you’ll find M43, a separate lobe of the nebula. It surrounds the unaided-eye star nu Orionis (ν Ori).

(Above: The sword below Orion’s famous belt (at top) contains the wonderful Orion Nebula and many other binocular and telescopic treats.)

While you’re touring the sword, look just below the nebula for a loose group of stars, 1300 light-years away, called Nair al Saif “the Bright One of the Sword”. This main star is a hot, bright star expected to explode in a supernova one day. It is surrounded by faint nebulosity, too. Astronomers believe that this star was gravitationally kicked out of the Trapezium cluster about 2.5 million years ago.

Sweeping down the sword and to the left (east) brings us to the star d Orionis at the tip of the sword. This magnitude 4.7 star is near the limit for visibility in moonless suburban skies. About two finger widths to its right is another star of similar brightness, named Thabit, "the endurer".  

Moving upwards towards Orion’s belt, half a finger width (30 arc-minutes, or the moon’s diameter) above the Orion Nebula, you’ll find another clump of stars dominated by c Orionis and 45 Orionis. A larger telescope, or a long-exposure photograph, reveals a bluish patch of nebulosity around them that contains darker lanes forming the shape of a figure, called the Running Man Nebula. This is another case of gas reflecting light from the two stars mentioned.

(Above:  The Running Man Nebula taken by Dave Eisfeldt of Waco, Texas on Oct 26, 2011 with a ATIK 314L:+ camera through a Orion ED-80 telescope on Sirius EQ-G mount. http://eldoradostarparty.org/ngc-1977-running-man-nebula-taken-by-dave-eisfeldt-of-waco-texas/)

Just above the Running Man sits a loose cluster of a few dozen stars best seen in binoculars. Then we jump higher – most of the way towards Alnitak (the eastern-most belt star), to check out a beautiful little grouping of stars collectively called Sigma Orionis. What makes this a special treat is that, in a small telescope, we find four or five stars crammed together. Check it out with your telescope – trust me, it’s pretty! It’s a bit more than a finger width to the lower right of Alnitak. Let me know what you see!

Keep looking up to enjoy the sky! I love getting questions so, if you have any, send me a note.

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/naija-gist/foreign/lady-reveals-how-she-dumped/

Lady Reveals How She Dumped Her Ex-boyfriend After What He Did With His ‘Tiny’ Manhood.

A woman dumped her ex after discovering his sexual oddity. Nilufer Atik, from London, says she’d had her eye on Robin* for a while, but whey they finally got into bed, she was left bitterly disappointed.

The 43-year-old, who was in her early 30s at the time, said her beau was partial to poking her belly button with his ‘tiny’ mahood, licking her eyelids and elbows and massaging her earlobes.

It all started when the pair met at a party soon after Nilufer moved to London when she was in her 30s.

He seemed like perfect boyfriend material at first and they started going to comedy shows together. But one night, she came home to find her housemates were having an argument – so she packed a bag and walked over to his house.

However, being the gentleman that he was, Robin refused to let her sleep on the couch, so Nilufer insisted they share a bed. One thing led to another and the pair were soon kissing passionately – but when she slid her hands down his boxers, she “froze.”

She said: “Kissing turned out to be the only thing Robin was good at in the sack. “When it came to foreplay and actually doing the deed itself, he was about as much of a turn on as a dead newt.

“It started with the tongue sliding down my right arm then circling the inside of my elbow. “Then he began licking and sucking my thumb, I couldn’t help wincing. “Then he reached his hands up and began massaging my earlobes. What was he doing?”

“As he whipped it out, I was dismayed to see … he really did have a tiny willy. And when I say tiny, I mean about three inches at salute. “When I felt him rubbing against my belly, I thought he was shifting position at first. Then I realised he was actually rubbing his manhood against my belly button.”

She slept with him a second and third time – where he began licking her eyelids – and so she made the decision to end it.

[drtanstravels]

In my last post we had spent a few nights in Vienna, Austria as Anna was a guest of Bayer at the 2018 Euretina Congress. We had always planned to have a holiday after the conference because it is kind of pointless to fly halfway around the world and not really see anything. Initially, we had decided on Poland because neither of us had been there before, but those plans soon changed when it became apparent that one of Bayer’s stipulations was that we fly with Turkish Airlines, with the flights to and from Vienna involving a layover in Istanbul, Turkey. Neither of us had been to Turkey either, but I went to university with a few Turkish people who were always saying how nice it was over there, an opinion echoed by a few other friends we know that have been, as well as a former student of mine who is now a pilot for Turkish Airlines. Turkey also often gets a bit of bad press, mainly due to what’s happening at the Syrian border, but we  wouldn’t be heading in that direction so we figured we had nothing to worry about. Instead, we would be spending one night in Istanbul, two nights looking through caves and underground cities, as well as exploring rock features in Cappadocia, another two nights checking out ancient ruins and salt mines around Izmir, then a final night back in Istanbul before flying back to Singapore. Let’s take a look back at that first leg of our Turkish adventure, our time spent exploring Istanbul, but be forewarned; a lot of this post — and the following posts from our Turkish holiday — may seem a bit like a history lesson, but that’s what happens when you go on personal guided tours through ancient cities.

Monday, September 24, 2018 By the time we had flown out from Vienna, landed in Istanbul, collected our luggage, and  arrived at the hotel, it was about 8:30pm. That didn’t really seem to be a problem, however, as people tend to do things late around here. A little bit of background information about Istanbul, a city we didn’t really know a whole lot about:

Istanbul, historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is the most populous city in Turkey and the country’s economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosporus strait (which separates Europe and Asia) between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side. The city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (coterminous with Istanbul Province), both hosting a population of around 15 million residents. Istanbul is one of the world’s most populous cities and ranks as the world’s 4th-largest city proper and the largest European city. Istanbul is viewed as a bridge between the East and West.

Founded under the name of Byzantion (Βυζάντιον) on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city grew in size and influence, having become one of the most important cities in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as an imperial capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman/Byzantine (330–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin (1204–1261), and the Ottoman (1453–1922) empires. It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times, before the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 CE and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold and the seat of the Ottoman Caliphate.

Istanbul’s strategic position on the historic Silk Road, rail networks to Europe and the Middle East, and the only sea route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean have produced a cosmopolitan populace. While Ankara was chosen instead as the new Turkish capital after the Turkish War of Independence, the city has maintained its prominence in geopolitical and cultural affairs. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in and city limits have expanded to accommodate them. Arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established towards the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network in the city.

Sounds pretty cool to me so we checked into our hotel, Fer, took the bags up to the room, and then hit the town. The hotel was in a great spot, making it easy to just wander around the city, checking out the shops, markets, bars, and restaurants. We strolled past some mosques, the Column of Constantine, an old cemetery, and a lot of other ancient buildings, but they were all things we would be spending the bulk of the following day taking in on a guided tour. Tonight was going to be all about eating and drinking and one thing that didn’t even cross my mind until that point was trying Turkish delight, most likely because I hated it as a child. When you grow up in rural Australia, you aren’t exposed to many authentic international foods, but more to international-inspired Australian food — Dim sims, anyone? Quite often boxes of assorted cream chocolates such as Cadbury Milk Tray had a disgusting Turkish Delight flavoured one that was just awful, but fortunately for the sake of humanity, Milk Tray discontinued the Turkish Delight flavour, renaming it Exotic Delight in 2013 and then replacing it altogether in 2015 with the far more palatable Apple Crunch. Anyway, my family generally only bought these types of chocolates at Christmas or on a special Family Night where we rented a video and spent Saturday night together, but if you were too engrossed in the movie and weren’t reading the key to the chocolates, you could absentmindedly grab that Turkish Delight one and your night was instantly ruined, even if you had chosen the movie. This is coming from someone who once ate a handful of compost as a dare, I’m not a fussy eater, but I hated what I thought was Turkish delight so I was skeptical when we stumbled upon Hafiz Mustafa, makers of what are considered the best Turkish delights available. We went inside the store, tried some of the samples and it was, well, delightful! Turkish delight in Turkey is absolutely delicious; instead of the pinkish-coloured bitter snot coated in overly sweet chocolate that I was accustomed to, traditional Turkish delight is a gel made of starch and sugar, sometimes coating dried fruit or nuts and then dusted with icing sugar, an ancient treat that became the inspiration for the modern jellybean. The flavours available are really interesting too, such as rosewater or mandarin. We ordered a bunch of different Turkish delight and cake, some rose tea, and kicked back for a bit before buying some more to take away and hit the street again. Some scenes up until that point:

Looking down next to the elevator from outside our hotel room in Hotel Fer

Not sure who lives in there

Moseying into town

A giant mosque

And another

Passing an old cemetery

Outside the Atik Ali Pasha Mosque Complex

Just spotted Hafiz Mustafa

Anna’s happy to be here

Havin’ tea

Some of the Turkish delight available

More of their selection

The bag ours came in. Definitely need to buy a fez.

After a few cups of tea and plenty of Turkish delight, we headed back out to look at the shops in the area, as well as find somewhere to eat, but we accidentally found ourselves in a market area, looking at jewellery. Anna almost has a sixth sense when it comes to sourcing out rings when we’re overseas so it came as no surprise that she stumbled upon Sûfî, a small store that sold a lot of traditional handmade Turkish items, in particular one-off rings. The owner was a really funny, albeit extremely sarcastic guy, and Anna could’ve spent a small fortune in there, but she managed to limit herself to two really cool rings that she’ll never be able to find anywhere else. That’s how she justifies it to herself, anyway.

Next on the agenda was the main reason we had come out — Dinner. Anna managed to find an area of bars and restaurants so we strolled past the mosques, statues, sculptures, and fountains that we’d see in more detail the next day and decided where to hunker down for the night for a bite to eat and a few drinks. The entire street was bars and restaurants so we chose one that looked good, Duvares Cafe, and pulled up a seat. Most people think of Turkish food as being a lot of bread, ground meat, and cheese, and this is generally true, but because Istanbul is on the coast, there is some really good seafood there too. We ordered some prawns, beef and eggplant, and a few other dishes but then our waiter, always the showman, brought over a table with a fire on it and a large clay vase covered in foil. He then put the vase in the fire and started banging on the table with his cutlery while an older man with a drum came over and started singing. When the dish was ready, he cracked the bottom off the vase and poured a pretty special looking stew into a bowl for the diner who had ordered it. I think I’ll be ordering this at some stage during our time in Turkey:

We sat there, eating our food while still being a little envious of those who got the stew and the old guy singing and playing the drum continued to hang around our table, doing his thing. He was obviously working for tips, however, we hadn’t had a chance to get any Turkish lira, the local currency, out so we only had euros. Not to worry, the lira was in some serious trouble and still is to this date so it would probably be advantageous for him to receive euros, he could just take them to a money changer and cash in, but he still didn’t look particularly happy. We finished our dinner and it turned out that there was a shisha bar just down the road called Just Bar so we went in there and ordered an apple shisha. In the past we had ordered double-apple, but it had tasted like aniseed, something both of us can’t stand, but a guy who overheard us at the next table told us that regular apple doesn’t taste that way and he turned out to be correct. We sat around the rest of the night drinking, smoking our shisha, eating Turkish delight, and listening to some great music, Anna deciding the Turkish delights looked like the coals on the shisha. Our waiter from Duvares spotted her holding a piece out and cheekily came over, snatched it, and ate it, telling us that the ones from Hafiz Mustafa have always been his favourite. A bit of what we saw that evening in Istanbul:

We’d be doing a tour of this, The Blue Mosque, the following day as well

Making our way down into the market area

Heading to the bar and restaurant district

Now walking to another part of town

Anna with the owner in front of Sûfî, where she could’ve almost singlehandedly fixed Turkey’s economic crisis just by buying rings

Still going

There were some good choices for places to eat on this street

Post dinner drinks and shisha

Anna getting hungry

The drummer who couldn’t appreciate a stronger currency

In Duvares Cafe

Turkish delight does look like the coal, I guess

Hanging with my woman

It looks like they sell a fair bit of that stew

A closeup of the German Fountain when we were going back to the hotel

A cool building we passed on our way home

Tuesday, September 25, 2018 We managed to get up at around 8:30am, despite returning to the hotel only seven hours earlier and our private tour guide was waiting for us in the lobby of our hotel, keen to show us around town, however, she said there was going to be a lot of walking so she suggested we grab some of the free breakfast upstairs first. Once we had had our fill of food and coffee it was time to hit the road. When taking private tours like this around any city, you are absolutely inundated with information and it becomes a little difficult to recall exact details about locations so for this post, as well as subsequent posts from this holiday, I figure the best approach is to get the details about the location from Wikipedia and then add any personal stories from that leg of the tour, followed by some photos (provided I was allowed to take them).

We walked from the hotel, past some interesting buildings we’d seen on our way into the city the previous night, and then we were supposed to begin the tour by seeing Topkapi Palace, which was used by the Ottoman Sultans from the 15th to 19th centuries, taking in what is supposed to be an impressive collection of priceless jewels, crystal, silver and porcelain, robes worn by the sultans, and relics of the prophet Mohammed while we were there. We could even pay a little extra to enter the palace’s Harem, however, Topkapi Palace isn’t open on Tuesdays. Another chapter in the never-ending account that is the T-Factor? Perhaps, but instead our first stop for the day was Hagia Sophia and it definitely wasn’t a bad alternative:

Hagia Sophia is the former Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal cathedral, later an Ottoman imperial mosque and now a museum (Ayasofya Müzesi) in Istanbul, Turkey. Built in 537 AD at the beginning of the Middle Ages, it was famous in particular for its massive dome. It was the world’s largest building and an engineering marvel of its time. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have “changed the history of architecture”.

From the date of its construction in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building was later converted into an Ottoman mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935. It remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.

In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Empire under Mehmed the Conqueror, who ordered this main church of Orthodox Christianity converted into a mosque. Although some parts of the city of Constantinople were falling into disrepair, the cathedral was maintained with an amount of money set aside for this purpose. Nevertheless, the Christian cathedral made a strong impression on the new Ottoman rulers and they decided to convert it into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and other relics were destroyed and the mosaics depicting Jesus, his Mother Mary, Christian saints, and angels were also destroyed or plastered over. Islamic features—such as the mihrab (a niche in the wall indicating the direction toward Mecca, for prayer), minbar (pulpit), and four minarets—were added. It remained a mosque until 1931 when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum by the Republic of Turkey. Hagia Sophia was, as of 2014, the second-most visited museum in Turkey, attracting almost 3.3 million visitors annually. According to data released by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, Hagia Sophia was Turkey’s most visited tourist attraction in 2015.

Very few buildings can claim to have been both a Catholic cathedral and a mosque in its history, therefore it is understandable why so many people want to see this place so our guide got the tickets for us and we were inside Hagia Sophia. Fortunately we got there early so it wasn’t too crowded, we could check out all of the mosaics and domes unobstructed. After we had strolled around at ground level for a while and taken in the sights, we were led up a slippery, narrow corridor that would take us to the upper gallery, allowing us to look out over the floor of the museum, as well as over the coast outside. Once back down, we looked through some of the outdoor ruins before cutting back through to exit and moving on to the next stop of our tour. A look around Hagia Sophia:

Standing in front of Hagia Sophia

A cool little building we saw en route

The entrance to Topkopi Palace

Fountain (Şadırvan) for ritual ablutions

A small portion of ceiling

Had to wait until almost everyone had moved on to get this shot

Imperial gate mosaic (late 9th or early 10th century)

Panoramic shot once inside

A minbar, the pulpit where the imam delivers his sermon

Apse mosaic of the Virgin and Child (9th century) above the mihrab

Columns made of green Thessalian stone

A golden gate

Taking a slippery path upstairs

The ceiling in the upper gallery

Looking from the upper gallery

Panoramic shot from the upper gallery

The marble door

The Deësis mosaic (c. 1261)

The Comnenus mosaic (c. 1122)

The Empress Zoe mosaic (c. 11th century)

Anna in the slippery hall

Remains from the second Hagia Sophia

More remains from the second Hagia Sophia

Another part of ceiling

Southwestern entrance mosaic (c. 10th-11th century)

Now it was on to the next stop on the tour, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque due to its interior being decorated with 20,000 iznik tiles. Anyhow, this is what we would be occupying once we eventually entered the Sultan Ahmed Mosque:

The Sultan Ahmet Mosque is a historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. A popular tourist site, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque continues to function as a mosque today; men still kneel in prayer on the mosque’s lush red carpet after the call to prayer. The Blue Mosque, as it is popularly known, was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. Its Külliye contains Ahmed’s tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque has five main domes, six minarets, and eight secondary domes. The design is the culmination of two centuries of Ottoman mosque development. It incorporates some Byzantine Christian elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect, Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa, synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendour. It has a forecourt and special area for ablution. In the middle it has a big fountain. On the upper side it has a big chain. The upper area is made up of 20000 ceramic tiles each having 60 tulip designs. In the lower area it has 200 stained glass windows.

Getting into this mosque seemed like it would be no easy feat, not because we aren’t Muslim, but because the line to enter was enormous. This would also be a time when we would discover that our tour guide, a local woman in her mid-twenties who was doing her master’s degree in Ancient History, could be exceptionally fierce! There were people trying to cut the queue, either by pretending that they didn’t realise that the hundreds of people lined up in front of them were also waiting to enter, a technique quite often adopted by members of foreign, particularly Chinese, tour groups visiting popular tourist attractions around the world, or locals spotting a friend further up the line, going up to chat to them briefly, and then taking the spot behind them in the queue. Our guide wasn’t buying this from anybody — She approached anyone who appeared to be cutting the queue and screamed at them in English or Turkish about what the rules were, that they were not special and the rules applied to them as well, and how one should conduct oneself in a crowded public environment. If they didn’t speak Turkish or English, she just kept pointing at their ticket and then to the back of the line with an extremely intimidating look on her face until they walked off with their tail between their legs and joined the end of the line. She was doing a better job than the actual security burdened with the task of stopping people cutting in line and in the process of doing so, she also managed to find an entrance specifically for groups of four or less people, allowing us to cut the queue. When we got to enter, we were required to take our shoes off, as is the case upon entering any mosque around the world, however, many people fear losing their shoes or someone else taking the wrong pair — I used to work opposite a mosque in Singapore when I was teaching and I remember going to get something for lunch one Friday, the Muslim holy day, and there were a pair of sandals among all of the other shoes out the front that had been fastened together with a bike lock! The staff at the Blue Mosque had already addressed this dilemma by providing everyone who entered with a bag in which to carry their shoes. We obliged and carried our sneakers in the bag, but security were getting annoyed with a woman behind us who happened to be from one of the aforementioned tour groups; apparently she had asked for an extra bag and then just tied them over her shoes while she was still wearing them, trying to justify not needing to take off her shoes due to them being covered. It just doesn’t work that way. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque was beautiful inside, but there were areas where you weren’t allowed to take pictures due to the camera flash potentially damaging some of the artwork, our guide loudly informing anyone who tried to discretely snap a shot of this fact. The photos we could take may not show the true detail of the thousands upon thousands of tiles inside, or the queue we had to conquer in order to see them, but they should give you the gist:

In the courtyard, a portion of the queue in front of us wrapping behind a fountain, with a minaret in the background

The line behind us

More of the line behind us as we were about to enter

Taking in some of the tiles and windows

Another angle

An area of preserved ceiling

The edge of the prayer area

A look at one of the domes

A small portion of the prayer floor

Looking back toward the entrance

Next on our tour was the Hippodrome, an area we had walked through several times the previous night, including taking photos of the German Fountain, but knew nothing about. Well, this is what the Hippodrome is:

The Hippodrome of Constantinople was a circus that was the sporting and social centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı (Sultan Ahmet Square) in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with a few fragments of the original structure surviving.

The word hippodrome comes from the Greek hippos (ἵππος), horse, and dromos (δρόμος), path or way. For this reason, it is sometimes also called Atmeydanı (“Horse Square”) in Turkish. Horse racing and chariot racing were popular pastimes in the ancient world and hippodromes were common features of Greek cities in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine era.

Now obviously we weren’t here for horse racing, but we found the answers to the questions we had about the structures we had seen the night before. Two of the first structures we encountered that were located close together in the Hippodrome were the Serpent Column and the Walled Obelisk. First, the Serpent Column:

To raise the image of his new capital, Constantine and his successors, especially Theodosius the Great, brought works of art from all over the empire to adorn it. The monuments were set up in the middle of the Hippodrome, the spina. Among these was the Tripod of Plataea, now known as the Serpent Column, cast to celebrate the victory of the Greeks over the Persians during the Persian Wars in the 5th century BC. Constantine ordered the Tripod to be moved from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and set in middle of the Hippodrome. The top was adorned with a golden bowl supported by three serpent heads, although it appears that this was never brought to Constantinople. The serpent heads and top third of the column were destroyed in 1700. Parts of the heads were recovered and are displayed at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. All that remains of the Delphi Tripod today is the base, known as the “Serpentine Column”.

Our guide seemed more than a little bitter when she told us that another one of the serpent heads from the eight-metre high (26′) column is actually in the British Museum. Just behind the Serpent Column was the slightly less interesting Walled Obelisk:

In the 10th century the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus built another obelisk at the other end of the Hippodrome. It was originally covered with gilded bronze plaques, but they were sacked by Latin troops in the Fourth Crusade. The stone core of this monument also survives, known as the Walled Obelisk.

We had taken a few photographs of both of these monuments at night and their appearance both in the light and the darkness is quite cool so here’s how we saw them on both occasions:

The Walled Obelisk in front of Hagia Sophia at night

The Serpent Column from a distance in the moonlight

Looking down into the up-lit remains of the Serpent Column

The Walled Obelisk from a different angle

The Serpent Column and the Walled Obelisk in the daylight

Without the lights

At the other end of the Hippodrome was the Obelisk of Thutmose III, also known as the Obelisk of Theodosius, which is in incredible condition when you consider its age:

The Obelisk of Theodosius is the Ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD.

The Obelisk of Theodosius is of red granite from Aswan and was originally 30m tall, like the Lateran Obelisk. The lower part was damaged in antiquity, probably during its transport or re-erection, and so the obelisk is today only 18.54m (or 19.6m) high, or 25.6m if the base is included. Between the four corners of the obelisk and the pedestal are four bronze cubes, used in its transportation and re-erection.

Each of its four faces has a single central column of inscription, celebrating Thutmose III’s victory over the Mitanni which took place on the banks of the Euphrates in about 1450 BC.

The marble pedestal had bas-reliefs dating to the time of the obelisk’s re-erection in Constantinople. On one face Theodosius I is shown offering the crown of victory to the winner in the chariot races, framed between arches and Corinthian columns, with happy spectators, musicians and dancers assisting in the ceremony. In the bottom right of this scene is the water organ of Ctesibius and on the left another instrument.

Some parts of the marble base aren’t original as is visible in these pictures, but I managed to snap a photograph of both the obelisk and a closeup of the pedistal from each angle:

Theodosius I offers laurels of victory (east face). Translation: “Though formerly I opposed resistance, I was ordered to obey the serene masters and to carry their palm, once the tyrants had been overcome. All things yield to Theodosius and to his everlasting descendants. This is true of me too – I was mastered and overcome in three times ten days and raised towards the upper air, under governor Proculus.”

The emperor and his court (north face)

Submission of the barbarians (west face). Translation: “This column with four sides which lay on the earth, only the emperor Theodosius dared to lift again its burden; Proclos was invited to execute his order; and this great column stood up in 32 days.”

The emperor and his court (south face)

We had one final stop on our tour before we had the rest of the day to ourselves; we were going to go underground and walk around the Yerebatan Underground Cistern, better known as the Basilica Cistern:

The Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul, Turkey. The cistern, located 150 metres (490 ft) southwest of the Hagia Sophia on the historical peninsula of Sarayburnu, was built in the 6th century during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

Ancient texts indicated that the basilica contained gardens, surrounded by a colonnade and facing the Hagia Sophia. According to ancient historians, Emperor Constantine built a structure that was later rebuilt and enlarged by Emperor Justinian after the Nika riots of 532, which devastated the city.

Historical texts claim that 7,000 slaves were involved in the construction of the cistern.

This cathedral-size cistern is an underground chamber approximately 138 metres (453 ft) by 65 metres (213 ft) – about 9,800 square metres (105,000 sq ft) in area – capable of holding 80,000 cubic metres (2,800,000 cu ft) of water. The ceiling is supported by a forest of 336 marble columns, each 9 metres (30 ft) high, arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns each spaced 5 metres (16 ft) apart.

When we descended the 52 stone steps to enter the cistern, I had a strange feeling that I had seen this place before and I’d soon know the reason; our guide told us that the cistern was a location in From Russia with Love, the 1963 James Bond flick. I guess that was where I recognised it from. It might’ve been a bit damp down there, but it was incredible to see and impossible to comprehend how it was built. I especially appreciated the Medusa column bases:

Located in the northwest corner of the cistern, the bases of two columns reuse blocks carved with the visage of Medusa. The origin of the two heads is unknown, though it is thought that the heads were brought to the cistern after being removed from a building of the late Roman period. There is no written evidence that suggests they were used as column pedestals previously. Tradition has it that the blocks are oriented sideways and inverted in order to negate the power of the Gorgons’ gaze; however, it is widely thought that one was placed sideways only to be the proper size to support the column. The upside-down Medusa was placed that way specifically because she would be the same height right side up.

Add to this the Hen’s Eye column, a column decorated with the Turkish all-seeing eye, something you encounter everywhere in Turkey in order to ward off bad luck, and our little wander around underground capped off a great end to the day’s fascinating, yet exhausting, history lesson:

Upon entry of the Cistern

From another angle

A random square column for some reason

The Hen’s Eye column

Closeup of the Hen’s Eye column

A Medusa-head base

And another

The learning was over and the rest of the day was ours, however, our guide walked us back to the Grand Bazaar suggesting it and the surrounding area to be a good place to get lunch. Okay, the history lesson isn’t quite over, a little background information on the Grand Bazaar:

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops which attract between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. In 2014, it was listed No.1 among the world’s most-visited tourist attractions with 91,250,000 annual visitors. The Grand Bazar at Istanbul is often regarded as one of the first shopping malls of the world.

I had also received this message the previous night from my friend Yarny, the one that was on Masterchef: Singapore:

We were definitely in the right place for it as the Grand Bazaar had endless stalls selling spices, as well as jewellery, food, souvenirs, tiles, antiques, and copious amounts of counterfeit goods. In fact, before we went to Hangzhou, I never thought I’d say that there was far more fake shit available in Turkey than in China, but it was simply the truth. Sure, we encountered fake and counterfeit items while we were in China, but nowhere near to the extent that we did in Turkey and you’ll find that this will be a bit of an ongoing theme over the course of my posts based throughout the country. We picked up the spices for Yarny and also grabbed a bag for ourselves and I have to say that that stuff is delicious, especially on fish because it’s kind of citrusy. But despite the fact that the bazaar boasts over 4,000 stores, it all gets a bit the same after a while, plus you’re constantly being hassled to come into people’s shops and you have to barter and haggle for anything and we just weren’t in the mood for it. One thing we weren’t expecting to find in the Bazaar, however, was the restaurant of Nusret Gökçe, A.K.A. “Salt Bae” (above, right). Anyone who has logged onto the internet even once in the past 18 months would more than likely have encountered at least one meme of this douche and his salt. Well, one branch of his chain of steakhouses, Nusr-Et, was located in the Grand Bazaar and it looks exactly what you’d expect from this self-righteous sociopath, despite the fact that it has received generally mixed reviews for both its food and its politics, with the general consensus being that it is overpriced for rather average food. In fact there was a review earlier this year for the New York branch in The Observer entitled “My Disappointing Meal at Salt Bae’s NYC Restaurant Cost $1,400.” Anyway, if you had to picture in your head what his restaurant would look like, your mental image is probably correct. This pretentious tool has stencils from the meme on every possible surface, as well as a life-size wax model of himself at the entrance in his signature pose. I honestly could not stop laughing and almost felt bad for the guy if it weren’t for the fact that his chain has been valued at $1.5 billion. Oh well, he can go cry into a pool of money. Some scenes from the Grand Bazaar, including Nusr-Et:

Anna loved these tiles near the entrance

Where we entered the Grand Bazaar

It begins…

Oh, God!

He’s really milking that meme

If only it were a voodoo doll

More of the Bazaar

Anna and a shisha shop

I wasn’t kidding when I said it all seems kind of the same after a while

If you look closely, there are some crazy shoes in that cabinet

Our bag of pul biber

We still hadn’t eaten lunch and there was no way I was going to blow over a grand on a steak unless it came from a thylacine or some other similarly hard-to-come-by being so we left the Grand Bazaar and decided to explore a bit more of the city. Before long we found a strip that was all coffee shops and stalls that served massive amounts of meat and kebabs so we pulled up a stool and gorged ourselves on a mixed-grill platter and some rice things that were wrapped in vine leaves. Nobody really has a name for them, but they are delicious! Once lunch was done, we crossed the Galata Bridge over the body of water known as the Golden Horn and entered the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, technically leaving Asia for Europe. All of the little neighbourhoods in Beyoğlu have a far more cosmopolitan vibe than those in the old city, with trams traveling along the avenues, while the backstreets and laneways are full of shops, patisseries, cafes, and a whole heap of pubs and wine shops. There are also a lot more foreigners in Beyoğlu, mostly European, and we later found out that it is Istanbul’s arts hub. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the painfully steep, narrow streets, looking through the shops, and playing with the dogs around town. One thing we learned about Turkey is that there are a lot of stray dogs around the streets, but they are clean, playful, extremely well-looked after, and even vaccinated. In fact, a tag through the dog’s ear signifies that it has had its complete round of rabies shots. I found this interesting in a mostly Islamic city, because Muslims in Singapore are generally terrified of dogs and believe that any wet part of a dog is Satan’s saliva, however, we were later told that Sunni Muslims apparently have a different, more affectionate approach to canines than Shiite Muslims, although I’m not quite sure how accurate that statement is.

After strolling through Europe, it was time to cross the Galata Bridge back into Asia, past the rows of men fishing from the bridge in the increasingly terrible weather, battling the wind and drizzle in order to land a catch. There must be something decent in those waters because not only was there a ton of fishermen, but there is also a decent stretch of seafood restaurants along the bottom of the bridge on the side of the old city. Once closer to home we had a look through the Egyptian Bazaar, stocked with the standard spices and fake goods, before stopping off at a bar for a bit. Here’s how the remainder of the afternoon looked once we had left the Grand Bazaar:

Meaty

It doesn’t get much more Turkish than a bunch of dudes sitting around and drinking coffee

Lunch

Fisherman doing their thing

Now in Europe

I wasn’t kidding when I said these streets were steep

A tower at the end of another small street

A massive stray dog just chilling

Anyone need a mace?

Going downhill this time

A little provocative

Those are some massive loaves of bread!

The seafood restaurants under the bridge

Back in Asia again

In the Egyptian Bazaar

Seems legit

Our stay in Istanbul had come to an end, as we had to return to the hotel to get our luggage and take our shuttle to the airport to catch our 9:30pm flight to Cappadocia so we could spend the next few nights staying in a cave and exploring the area, hopefully by hot-air balloon at dawn (the title probably gives away how that went), but that’s all a story for next time. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Climbing, Caving, and Canceled Ballooning in Turkey, pt. 1: Istanbul In my last post we had spent a few nights in Vienna, Austria as Anna was a guest of…

[shondagreen64241-blog]

Jwenn & Recherche Atik Biznis Yo Nan Esfè Atik (Haitian Creole).

Possessing very little to nothing at all to accomplish along with web design or even progression, this type deals with web hosting just. Around the age of THIRTEEN, she took a blessed pledge of chastity, choosing to keep her virginity by religious beliefs. Due reverence Those sort of non-sense usage of label of The lord is only one means from breaking the rule there is in fact much more techniques our experts might perform. I had two dads, one that left behind when I was simply a month old (he was actually uncertain I was his son, and so he divorced my mama), as well as one that arrived when I was 5 (he possessed a 40-word lexicon, TWENTY which were actually cuss phrases). One Instructions's Louis Tomlinson as well as partner Briana Jungwirth jumped on the British train when they chose the nickname label that's the 20th most popular title in England. Marketers must remember that while creating the consumer laugh, they have to keep traits appealing, given that old pranks perish along with their products. The name Australia, is apparently stemmed from the Roman terms utilized for unfamiliar southern property (Terra Australis Incognita). When that arrives time to choose a brand new domain title, perhaps this recommendations will help you create a successful site and aid you. For instance your business label, an on-line company providing everyday packages for mum, children and also children. In fact he did not like that name yet he took this. The title made him seem even more casual to the people he offered. But the biggest explanation our team believe InVivo's supply can have a large move higher in 2015 is actually due to the fact that there is actually evidence, albeit coming from just one patient so far, that NSS is working. Yet others state a different rule controling federal opportunities offers Trump energy to name a person in other places in the management to that part briefly, while http://2016healthy-diet-sport.info/ce-qui-est-france-bioxelan-forum/ the White Home identifies a full time nominee that would be actually validated due to the Us senate.

Samuel had to do with 3 years of ages when he went to live at the habitation and also learn to be a priest. Know that you recognize effective ways to receive the label of the required column, remove the 2nd measure, to ensure that simply 'Resource' exists.

So the huge a large number from our openings in 2014, in fact if you return a couple of years, our team opened up 43 resorts in 2014, 49 lodgings in 2015. You should not must transform your label for this, certainly not up until you get wed anyhow. When you check out several of the best well-known qualified logo design layouts, you will realize just exactly how swiftly you can easily call a firm merely by glancing at the logo.

Perhaps Songs administrative agency, Preaching administrative agency, Church ministry, Youth Department, Theology Ministry, or even every other department connected with the chapel ... a name for an administrative agency should be opted for keeping the vision and also purpose in thoughts.

When an individual enters their residence they introduce their appearance and also welcome the home by label, I likewise suggest. Always remember, an impactful crew name encourages members in this motivation as well as the team inspires to press the limit. Adjustment Call Facebook Company Webpage function is actually on the market per FB user within the UNITED STATE. The acknowledgment and also laurels a group from girls gets is actually linked with their group title. We have all performed that, ran into the establishment to acquire one thing, and called it out by brand ... not by true item title. On 29 August 2016 he obtained the National Conventional C And W Association 2016 Life Time Achievement Honor at the 41st Yearly Old Opportunity Country Music Celebration in LeMars, Iowa.

[ahoodniggawithwifi-blog]

Check Out Nasihat Email Marketing Wonderful ini

 Selamat datang di dunia pemasaran email yang indah! Apakah Anda seorang pemula yang belum pernah menulis email pemasaran dalam kehidupan mereka, atau pakar berpengalaman dengan banyak daftar pilihan, tip dalam artikel ini akan mengajarkan hal-hal yang mungkin tidak pernah Anda pikirkan sebelumnya. Baca terus untuk belajar!

 Jaga konten Anda saat ini dan variabel; Jangan hanya berulang kali mengirimkan lima pesan yang sama berulang kali. Jika Anda ingin menarik perhatian orang, perlu ada sesuatu yang segar, atau perhatian mereka akan pergi ke tempat lain. Jika mereka menginginkan iklan sepanjang waktu, mereka hanya akan tinggal di rumah sambil menonton saluran belanja di rumah. Bahkan jika beberapa dari mereka melakukan itu, beri mereka sesuatu yang berbeda saat mereka memeriksa kotak masuk mereka.

 Dapatkan izin jika Anda akan menghubungi pelanggan melalui email. Kebanyakan orang hanya menghapus email yang belum mereka minta. Anda juga bisa melanggar kebijakan ISP Anda dengan mengirimkan email massal kepada konsumen yang tidak ingin menerimanya.

 Biarkan pembaca Anda memilih tata letak konten Anda. Setiap pesan dengan gambar, grafik dan JavaScript kemungkinan akan dimakan oleh filter perangkat lunak dan tidak pernah terlihat oleh mata manusia. Kirimkan teks dasar atau format teks kaya termasuk link ke situs Anda, dan pilihan versi HTML untuk mereka yang menginginkannya.

 Email adalah alat pemasaran yang hebat, tapi bukan arena di mana penjualan keras dihargai. Jangan pernah menekan pelanggan Anda untuk membeli jasa backlink. Masukkan penawaran penjualan di ujung ekor email Anda, terutama jika pembaca Anda mendaftar dengan harapan akan konten informatif. Anggap email sebagai alat untuk menumbuhkan minat, bukan penjualan instan.

 Waspadalah terhadap menyertakan lampiran ke pemasaran email Anda! Email massal dengan lampiran langsung dicurigai sebagai spam oleh kebanyakan filter spam. Selain itu, belakangan ini banyak jenis malware dan virus komputer dibawa dalam lampiran email, dan orang-orang mengetahui hal ini. Email Anda dalam bahaya segera dihapus saat mereka melihat lampiran bahkan tanpa dibaca.

 Agar email Anda terlihat se profesional mungkin, investasikan sedikit pemikiran dalam desain mereka. Gunakan tata letak, skema warna, dan logo yang konsisten dengan semua pesan Anda. Ini memberi kesan kepada pelanggan Anda bahwa mereka mendengar dari sumber yang dapat dipercaya dan berwibawa. Mereka akan lebih memperhatikan dan memberi konten Anda lebih percaya dengan cara ini.

 Fokus pada satu pesan per email yang Anda kirim. Jangan mencoba menjejalkan sejumlah besar topik ke dalam satu email. Banyak informasi dapat menyebabkan penerima tidak membaca semua hal dengan hati-hati dan mungkin hanya membuang pesan. Miliki baris subjek informatif dan inti topik Anda di email agar mereka membacanya.

 Email Anda harus dibaca sans gambar. Banyak penyedia email menonaktifkan gambar secara default, dan kecuali jika pengguna mengubah setting mereka, mereka tidak akan dapat melihat gambar yang Anda sertakan. Karena itu, setiap gambar yang Anda sertakan dalam email yang Anda kirim juga harus diikuti dengan teks yang lengkap.

 Rancang email pemasaran Anda agar mudah dibaca di perangkat seluler, selain komputer. Semakin banyak orang memeriksa pesan email mereka menggunakan ponsel mereka. Jika pesan sulit dibaca di telepon mereka, kemungkinan akan terhapus tanpa konten yang pernah dibaca.

 Jika Anda membuat kampanye pertama atau hanya mengutak-atik hal-hal yang telah Anda jalankan, gunakan strategi yang tercantum di sini agar efektif dan berhasil. Menggunakan keahlian orang lain adalah cara terbaik untuk meningkatkan kemampuan Anda sendiri, mempelajari teknik baru dan meraih kesuksesan yang tidak pernah Anda duga, jadi mulai bekerja hari ini!

[ottomanladies]

Just saw your amazing post about origins and noticed small error: Nurbanu was abducted from island of Paros not Paris (common auto grammar check "likes" to change name of this island to name of the city).And Hurrem - surname Lisowska (traditionally in Ukrainian it goes this way).

for the island I simply followed what it’s said in Kayaalp-Aktan, “The Atik Valide Mosque”

As for Hürrem’s alleged surname, thank you for pointing it out. I was sure that Peirce had written Likowska but apparently either I’m slowly becoming blind or I should not make gifsets when I am ill. 

[jatik]

Punya anak lelaki juga butuh perlakuan yang berbeda sesuai dengan karakternya. Termasuk mengkonsep interior kamarnya. Anak cowok pasti ingin menampilkan karakter dirinya, minimal ditunjukkan dari desain kamar tidurnya. Berikut ini beberapa ide desain kamar tidur anak cowok, yang bisa menjadi inspirasi bagi Anda.

Beberapa ide desain kamar tidur anak cowok ini bisa menjadi rujukan bagi Anda ketika ingin mendesain interior kamar mereka. Anda bisa mencoba mendiskusikan bersama dengan anak-anak lelaki Anda tentang bagaimana kamar yang mereka inginkan.

Biasanya, anak cowok ingin menampilkan sisi karakter “laki” pada kamar mereka. Ada yang ingin menampilkan karakter superhero di kamarnya. Atau karakter sporty dalam kamarnya. Banyak juga yang ingin menampilkan sosok mandiri di kamar tidur tersebut.

Apapun yang ingin ditampilkan oleh anak lelaki Anda tersebut, berusahalah untuk melihat dari sudut pandang mereka. Karena kamar bukan hanya sekedar tempat untuk tidur. Tetapi, dari kamar juga bisa hadir banyak ide-ide brilian untuk masa depan mereka.

So, untuk membantu Anda dalam menghadirkan konsep desain kamar tidur anak cowok, berikut ini beberapa desain interior kamar tidur anak cowok yang bisa menambah referensi ide Anda. Check this out!

1. Desain interior kamar tidur sporty

Bagi anak Anda yang memang memiliki hobi olahraga yang tinggi, maka Anda bisa menghadirkan kesenangan tersebut dalam interior kamar mereka. Dengan konsep sporty, hadirkan warna-warna yang cerah dalam kamar dan tak lupa aksesoris yang terkait dengan hobi anak Anda tersebut harus hadir.

Anda bisa melihat konsep kamar tidur sporty tersebut dalam contoh desain kamar berikut ini.

Konsep desain interior kamar tidur anak yang sporty

Konsep sporty hadir dalam ruang tidur anak.

Hobi skateboarding bisa memberikan warna tersendiri pada kamar anak-anak.

2. Desain kamar tidur dengan konsep minimalis

Ada beberapa anak yang tidak terlalu menginginkan banyak interior tambahan di dalam kamarnya. Tipe anak seperti ini biasanya lebih ingin tampilan kamarnya minimalis tetapi tetap elegan. Jika anak Anda salah satu bertipe seperti itu, maka gambar berikut ini bisa menjadi bahan referensi Anda.

Kamar tidur anak dengan konsep minimalis tetapi tetap elegan

Interior yang minimalis salah satu karakter yang bisa ditampilkan di kamar tidur anak cowok.

3. Konsep kamar tidur Rockstar!

Anak Anda adalah salah satu tipe anak yang suka dengan musik-musik rock? Tak ada salahnya hobi tersebut tergambar dalam desain kamarnya. Berikut ini beberapa desain kamar tidur anak dengan mengusung konsep Rockstar!

Desain kamar tidur anak dengan konsep rockstar!

4. Desain kamar tidur dengan karakter traveling

Buat anak-anak lelaki Anda yang suka traveling, tak ada salahnya mengadaptasi hobi traveling tersebut dalam desain interior kamar tidurnya. Konsep desain kamar dengan suasana traveling tersebut dapat tergambar seperti dalam gambar berikut.

Anak Anda hobi traveling? Biarkan hobi tersebut tergambar nyata di kamar tidurnya.

5. Konsep desain kamar tidur berkarakter racing (hobi mobil / motor)

Bagi anak Anda yang suka otak-atik kendaraannya, motor / mobil, tak ada salahnya jika kesenangannya tersebut terwujud dalam interior kamarnya. Berikut beberapa contohnya.

Hobi balap mobil / motor? Aplikasikan kesenangan mereka dalam desain interior kamar mereka.

Masih ingin menambah koleksi referensi ide desain kamar tidur anak cowok Anda? Berikut ini beberapa koleksi desain kamar yang dapat memberikan inspirasi bagi orangtua untuk memberikan warna tersendiri pada kamar anak-anaknya.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Referensi Tambahan:

www.pinterest.com

25+ Ide Desain Kamar Tidur Anak Cowok yang Menginspirasi Punya anak lelaki juga butuh perlakuan yang berbeda sesuai dengan karakternya. Termasuk mengkonsep interior kamarnya. Anak cowok pasti ingin menampilkan karakter dirinya, minimal ditunjukkan dari desain kamar tidurnya.

[geekswithscissors]

@Regrann from @universetoday - Hey everyone! @jezhughes here again. This is M31, the Andromeda Galaxy - A popular object to photograph in the Northern hemisphere skies. This took me about 40 hours to capture over several nights throughout this winter. Also in the photo, you can see M31 (above Andromeda in the photo) and M110 (below) - two satellite dwarf elliptical galaxies which accompany Andromeda. The colours tell another story here - the blue spiral arms are made up of younger (blue) stars, where as the more yellow central region (the galactic bulge) are mostly older (red) stars. The small pink blobs you can see in the spiral arms are high densities of hydrogen where star formation is high. #spaceiscool huh? Camera: Atik 460ex CCD | 400mm f 5 | Integration: 60 x 300s (LRGB) + 20 x 600s Ha #astronomy #astrophotography #photography #universe #nightsky #starstuff #stardust #longexposure #nightphotography #startalk #stars Want to be featured? Use the hashtag #universetoday and we'll check out your pictures. - #regrann

[ottomanladies]

Ahmed saw 19 of his father’s brothers killed at the age of 5, two of his brothers died one executed by the order of the sultan, his mother liked to interfere a lot to the point she was annoying and exasperating. I don’t think that he was a mysoginist as you say but he grew up seeing two women that probably scared him as a child(one his grandma who he most likely saw as s bloody woman and his m who was exasperating). If he hated women in power he wouldn have elevated Kosem, don’t you agree?

You (in general; I have another ask saying this) keep saying he saw his father’s brothers being killed... I think you’re mistaking MY:K for history. 

I don’t think Ahmed was even in Istanbul at the time. 

Every time a new sultan ascended the throne, he and only he would travel to Istanbul as fast as he could to take possession of the city. Sometimes they would travel in incognito because the sultan’s death had been concealed. Their harems, therefore, stayed back until it was safe to bring them to Istanbul. 

A quick example: Selim II ascended the throne on 7 September 1566 but Nurbanu arrived in the capital only on 26 October 1566:

“Has arrived here the Most Serene Signor’s Cassachi, that is, his most favored woman, Sultan Murath’s mother, who is said to be extremely loved and honored by His Majesty, both for her extreme beauty and rarest intellect... “ -- Pinar Kayaalp-Aktan, The Atik Valide Mosque Complex: A testament of Nurbanu's prestige, power and piety

Again, Murad III travelled in incognito because the death of his father had not been announced. He arrived at Istanbul alone and only later would his harem join him. 

Since Mehmed III was the last of the sultans who had a provincial post to govern, it is safe to assume that he too travelled alone. Especially because we know that Safiye had tried - with terrible results - to keep Murad III’s death a secret: 

“When Murad III died, the grand vezir Ferhad Pasha wanted to send another vezir to fetch the new sultan, Mehmed Ill, but, according to the ambassador Marco Venier. "the Sultanas declared that this sudden departure would waken suspicion. Accordingly they resolved to send the ... chief gardener, in the middle-sized caique, as he was accustomed to go every day to ... fetch water for the Sultan's use. [...] Venier's dispatches from the days following Murad III's death provide a sense of the tension rife in the capital during this uncertain period (obviously the palace's attempt to hide the sultan's death was not entirely successful). He reported that he had hidden the embassy archives and brought in armed men to protect his house because of his fear that it might be looted or burned: 

The rumour of the Sultan's death has spread down to the very children: and a riot is expected, accompanied by a sack of shops and houses as usual.... In the eleven days which have elapsed since the death of the Sultan Murad, several executions have taken place in order to keep the populace in check. Inside the serraglio there has been a great uproar, and every night we hear guns fired-a sign that at that moment some one is being thrown into the sea.'” -- Leslie P. Peirce. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Murad III executed his brothers right away, the same day he was confirmed sultan. It is safe to assume that Mehmed III did the same; young Ahmed, therefore, never saw anything. And at 5 years old, I doubt that someone told him what had happened. He probably found out afterwards but Mahmud’s execution certainly affected him more: 

“In the year before his succession, he had witnessed not only the most violent sipahi rebellion, which shook the throne of his father and threatened to eliminate the Ottoman dynasty, but also the execution of his elder brother, Prince Mahmud, who was strangled in a room in the imperial harem that was probably very close to where Ahmed resided with his mother, [...]. Along with his princely education, these tumultuous and bloody events appear to have deeply affected young Ahmed and shaped his emotions, ideas, character and actions in the coming years. He would pursue a very different path from that of his father, and in so doing, he would become a religious, hot-tempered, intolerant and rigorous ruler devoted to justice and order.” -- Günhan Börekçi, Factions and Favorites at the Courts of Sultan Ahmed I and His Immediate Predecessors

As for Kösem, she knew Ahmed I’s nature very well: 

“According to Cristoforo Valier in 1616, Kösem was the most powerful of the sultan's intimate associates: "she can do what she wishes with the King and possesses his heart absolutely, nor is anything ever denied to her." Contarini noted, however, that Kosem "restrains herself with great wisdom from speaking [to the sultan] too frequently of serious matters and affairs of state.” Her circumspection was probably aimed at avoiding the displeasure of the sultan, who was determined to avoid giving the appearance of being dominated by a woman, as his father had been.”-- Leslie P. Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Maybe it is exaggerated to describe Ahmed as a mysogynist but he was very much a hypocrite: he couldn’t suffer Safiye or even his mother having a saying in the ruling of the empire, but was willing to listen to Kösem’s advice.

But maybe the reason why she succeeded was that she portrayed herself as the opposite of Safiye and Handan. It seems like Ahmed abhorred being told what to do and while his mother could have done that, a concubine certainly couldn’t have.

[ottomanladies]

Hello! Do you think it was possible, that one of the Sultan's concubine became friend with the imperial princesses like Atike and Farya? Do we know the whole title of the members of the Sultanate of Women? Do the concubines have to bow to high ranking statesmen? If not, did they have to respont to his presence somehow? Did the Sultana's went to the outside world? If yes, what did they have to wear?

Hello!

Why not? Sometimes princesses raised future consorts in their own household before presenting them to the sultan so it wasn’t impossible for them to develop some kind of relationship.

Atike Sultan remained close to both Mehmed IV and Turhan Hatice but, admittedly, we don’t know whether they were friends or they just shared the same political views.

You mean the Devletlu Ismetlu titles? I must admit I have never seen them in full in any book I own, but apparently they are Devletlû İsmetlu (given name) Vâlide Sultân Aliyyetü'ş-Şân Hazretleri

Hürrem’s was Devletlû İsmetlu Hürrem Haseki Sultân Aliyyetü'ş-Şân Hazretleri

I’m not sure what titles Ottoman princesses had, I don’t think they had the Devletlu Ismetlu ones.

Concubines did not meet high-ranking statesmen, though… Contrary to what MC depicts, statesmen did not enter the third courtyard, the residence of the sultan and his family, so there weren’t many occasions for a concubine and a statesman to meet.

Valide Sultans communicated through letters, but the regents (Kosem and Turhan) participated to Divan meetings so let’s say they had to be acknowledged by the viziers who entered the room: they were bowed to, without a doubt. They were Queens Mother, they were regents, their rank was clearly higher than anyone in the room except for the sultan.

I’d say, though, that every mother of a child outranked a statesman. Well, it was polite to respond to someone bowing to you with something like a nod, but I think this happens everywhere in the world.

Yes, sultanas left the palace from time to time. Valide Sultans attended prayers in the major mosques in the city, they had palaces on the Bosphorus (Nurbanu did not die in Topkapi but in one of her residences on the sea), they sometimes went out to check their building projects (Turhan Hatice had a spot, opposite to the site of her mosque, where she could observe the construction behind gilded windows)

They were completely veiled, of course, and wore their hotozes on the head. Tiaras were used only towards the end of the Empire and not to go out, they were worn just during official celebrations (like any tiara in a royal family, I guess). The hotoz was “a kind of headgear that is a bit higher in front, lower in back, and made of fine silk fabric in a color that complements the color of the dress. One could wear jewels on the hotoz, if one wished.”

Rahime Perestu Valide Sultan would wear one during formal occasions: “atop her hennaed hair a calpac-shaped hotoz worked in the most exquisite lace-like embroidery, and wearing the emerald pin called the Valide Tacı [Mother’s Crown], which she flanked with the two emerald pins from the same set.”

The cloak women wore outside was called ferace.

[newsnigeria]

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/ghanaians-us-military-base/

Ghanaians up in arms against Proposed US Military Base

Ghanaians are up in arms with the Akufo Addo led government over it’s decision sell out Ghana’s sovereignty to the US for a paltry $20 million.

The murky agreement got Ghanaians in their blindside, the public however isn’t taking this lying down. Running battles started yesterday night after the U.S. Ambassador reportedly ordered/suggedted the arrest of the deputy General general secretary of the main opposition party Koku Anyidoho (aka THE BULL) , for calling on citizens to start a civil revolution to take back Ghana and safeguard peace.

A woman was shot dead, and many others sustained gunshot wounds, yesterday night, that has not dampened spirits though as the whole capital has ground to a screeching halt since morning with a mammoth demonstration since morning led by General Secretary Asiedu Nketia (General mosquito ), former president President John Mahama, Eric Agbana, Ernesto Yeboah, Atik Mohamed and the nemesis of AFRICOM, Collins Dakurah himself.

Ghanaians have made it clear, they like their peace as it is, and don’t want the US presence to attract the likes of Bokoharam , ISIS and Al Qaeda as is happening in their neighborhood Burkina and Cote D’Ivoire.

However, the hard headed government which the past joined hands with the CIA to overthrow Kwame Nkrumah won’t hear word. If you are planning on travelling to Ghana soon hold on and monitor the security situation first

See graphic images from yesterday night.