Cultural Heritage of Turkey [antikvár]

PREFACE Cultural heritage of a country reflects its life style and the creative power of its people. Living cultures foster their heritage! an encounter with them gives one the chance to have direct experience and appreciation. But access to the vanished civilizations is only possible through historical research and careful study of the physical. The unique artistic and scientific accomplishments of bygone cultures are regarded as part of the collective heritage of mankind; they contribute to the building up of a united picture of the world's cultural history. Anatolia has been the scene of great cultures; archaeological researches in Turkey revealed spectacular sites from Neolithic, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk cultures. The knowledge gained from these finds is shared by scholars, but it is important to disseminate this information to wider circles, in order to make more people aware of the rich human experience reflected by these sites. This book on Cultural Heritage of Turkey tries to bring together Turkey's World Heritage sites and the properties on the preliminary list. The initiative of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism to focus on publications is a chance to make these cultural assets known to the world. It also offers an opportunity to increase the awareness of the problems and to inspire new ideas for research and artistic creation. Turkey's cultural heritage embodies a rich repertoire of monuments and sites from different periods and traditions. At the moment there are ten sites: Troy, Hattusha, Nemrut Dag, Xanthos and Letoon, Hierapolis, Cappadocia, Istanbul, Great Mosque and Hospital in Divrigi, Safranbolu and Selimiye Mosque and its Social Complex on the World Heritage List. Most of these sites are archaeological, representing the cultural diversity from about 2000 BC to the medieval period.