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Made in Turkey

Made in Turkey: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough intro-
duction to the history, sociology, and musicology of Turkish popular music. The volume
consists of essays by leading scholars of Turkish music, and covers the major figures, styles,
and social contexts of popular music in Turkey. Each essay provides adequate context so
readers understand why the figure or genre under discussion is of lasting significance to
Turkish popular music. The book first presents a general description of the history and
background of popular music in Turkey, followed by essays that are organized into thematic
sections: Histories, Politics, Ethnicities, and Genres.

Ali C. Gedik is Associate Professor of Musicology at Dokuz Eylül University. He is the

co-founder and sciences editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies, the president
of the Society of Interdisciplinary Musicology, the secretary of the IASPM-Turkey branch,
and the editor of the book Bilim Üzerine Marksist Tartışmalar: Marksizm ve İki Kültür
(2015).
Routledge Global Popular Music Series
Series Editors: Franco Fabbri, University of Huddersfield, UK
and Goffredo Plastino, Newcastle University, UK

The Routledge Global Popular Music Series provides popular music scholars, teachers,
students, and musicologists with a well-informed and up-to-date introduction to different
world popular music scenes. The series of volumes can be used for academic teaching in
popular music studies, or as a collection of reference works. Written by those living and
working in the countries about which they write, this series is devoted to popular music
largely unknown to Anglo-American readers.

Made in Italy: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Franco Fabbri and Goffredo Plastino

Made in Japan: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Tōru Mitsui

Made in Brazil: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Martha Tupinambá de Ulhôa, Cláudia Azevedo and Felipe Trotta

Made in Latin America: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Julio Mendívil and Christian Spencer Espinosa

Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Hyunjoon Shin and Seung-Ah Lee

Made in Sweden: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Alf Björnberg and Thomas Bossius

Made in Hungary: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Emília Barna and Tamás Tófalvy

Made in France: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Gérôme Guibert and Catherine Rudent

Made in the Low Countries: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Lutgard Mutsaers and Gert Keunen

Made in Turkey: Studies in Popular Music

Edited by Ali C. Gedik
Made in Turkey
Studies in Popular Music

Edited by
Ali C. Gedik
First published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2018 Taylor & Francis

The right of Ali C. Gedik to be identified as the author of the editorial material,
and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or

reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks

or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification
and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Gedik, Ali C., editor.
Title: Made in Turkey: studies in popular music/edited by Ali C. Gedik.
Description: New York; London: Routledge, 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017027849 | ISBN 9781138789289 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Popular music—Turkey—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC ML3502.T9 M34 2017 | DDC 781.6309561—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017027849

ISBN: 978-1-138-78928-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-76499-3 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion Pro

by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK
Dedicated to my wife Mesude . . .
 Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Series Foreword xi
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xix

Introduction: Struggling with and Discussing a “Republic” through

Popular Music 1
ALI C. GEDIK

Part I: Histories 21
1 Legacies, Continuities, and Breaks: Musical Entertainment in the
Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and the Republic of Turkey 23
VOLKAN AYTAR

2 Entertainment Spaces, Genres, and Repertoires in Ottoman Musical

Life 35
Ş. ŞEHVAR BEŞIROĞLU AND GONCA GIRGIN

3 A Topography of Changing Tastes: The 12-Tone Equal-Tempered

System and the Modernization of Turkish Music 53
ALI ERGUR

4 Music Reform in Turkey: On the Failures and Successes of Inventing

National Songs 63
ÖZGÜR BALKILIÇ

Part II: Politics 73

5 The Golden Microphone as a Moment of Hegemony 75
LEVENT ERGUN

6 Class Struggle in Popular Musics of Turkey: Changing Sounds

from the Left 89
ALI C. GEDIK
viii • Contents

7 The Glocality of Islamic Popular Music: The Turkish Case 107

AYHAN EROL

8 Politics of World Music: The Case of Sufi Music in Turkey 119

KORAY DEĞIRMENCI

Part III: Ethnicities 131

9 Ethnic Spaces and Multiculturalism Debates on Popular Music
of Turkey 133
BURCU YILDIZ

10 Kurdish Popular Music in Turkey 149

OZAN AKSOY

11 Romanistanbul: City, Music, and a Transformation Story 167

ÖZGÜR AKGÜL

Part IV: Genres 177

12 Arabesk: Looking at the History of Popular Meanings and
Feelings in Turkey 179
BETÜL YARAR

13 The Rise of a Folk Instrument in Turkish Popular Music: The Mey 193
SONGÜL KARAHASANOĞLU

14 Global Connectivity and the Izmir Extreme-Metal Scene 207

AYKUT ÇEREZCIOĞLU

Coda 219
15 Turkish Popular Music in Global Perspective 221
MARTIN STOKES

Afterword—Days of Anatolian Pop: A Conversation with Cahit Berkay 231

TAYFUN BILGIN

A Selected Bibliography of Turkish Popular Music 243

Notes on Contributors 249
Index 253
 Illustrations

Figures
1.1 Balo Gazetesi (Ballroom Gazette) in 1941 29
10.1 Album Cover of Aynur’s Hevra (Together), Sony Music Classical, 2014 155
10.2 Album Cover of Serhado’s Bıhuşta Xeyalan, Kom Müzik, 2013 156
10.3 Album Cover of Berfîn Mamedova’s Koçber, Kom Müzik, 2014 157
10.4 Album Cover of Hîvron’s Mem û Zîn/Welat, Kom Müzik, 2013 158
10.5 Album Cover of Rojda’s Kezî-Stranên Dengbejê Jin, Kom Müzik, 2014 159
10.6 Album Cover of Diyar’s Dema Azadî, Kom Müzik, 2013 161
10.7 Album Cover of Rêzan Şîrvan’s Ji Te Dur Im, Aydın Müzik, 2014 162
10.8 Album Cover of Mem Ararat’s Quling, Ewr û Baran, Kom Müzik, 2013 164
13.1 The Mey 194
13.2 The Mey, the Duduk, and the Balaban 196
13.3 The Mey, the Duduk, and the Balaban 197
13.4 The Meys in Diatonic Sets 202

Tables
2.1 Daily Festive Events 38
2.2 Daily Entertainments and Festivals 39
2.3 Genres in Festive Events 43
 Series Foreword

Popular music studies have progressed from the initial focus on methodologies to explor-
ing a variety of genres, scenes, works, and performers. British and North-American music
have been privileged and studied first, not only for their geographic and generational
proximity to scholars, but also for their tremendous impact. Everything else has been often
relegated to the dubious “world music” category, with a “folk” (or “roots”, or “authentic”)
label attached.
However, world popular music is no less popular than rock ’n’ roll, R&B, disco, rap,
singer-songwriters, punk, grunge, brit-pop, or nu-gaze. It is no less full of history and
passion, no less danceable, socially relevant, and commercialized. Argentinian tango,
Brazilian bossa nova, Mexican reggaeton, Cuban son and timba, Spanish and Latin American
cantautores, French auteurs-compositeurs-interprètes, Italian cantautori and electronic dance
music, J-pop, German cosmic music and Schlager, Neapolitan Song, Greek entechno, Algerian
raï, Ghanaian highlife, Portuguese fado, Nigerian jùjú, Egyptian and Lebanese Arabic pop,
Israeli mizrahit, Indian filmi are just a few examples of locally and transnationally successful
genres that, with millions of records sold, are an immensely precious key to understand
different cultures, societies and economies.
More than in the past there is now a widespread awareness of the “other” popular music:
however, we still lack access to the original sources, or to texts to rely on. The Routledge
Global Popular Music Series has been devised to offer to scholars, teachers, students and
general readers worldwide a direct access to scenes, works and performers that have been
mostly not much or at all considered in the current literature, and at the same time to
provide a better understanding of the different approaches in the field of non-Anglophone
scholarship. Uncovering the wealth of studies flourishing in so many countries, inaccessible
to those who do not speak the local language, is by now no less urgent than considering
the music itself.
The Series website (www.globalpopularmusic.net) includes hundreds of audiovisual
examples which complement the volumes. The interaction with the website is intended to
give a well-informed introduction to the world’s popular music from entirely new per-
spectives, and at the same time to provide updated resources for the academic teaching.
xii • Series Foreword

Routledge Global Popular Music Series ultimately aims at establishing a truly international
arena for a democratic musicology, through authoritative and accessible books. We hope
that our work will help the creation of a different polyphony of critical approaches, and that
you will enjoy listening to and being part of it.

Franco Fabbri
University of Huddersfield, UK

Goffredo Plastino
Newcastle University, UK

Series Editors
 Preface
In Memory of Prof. Şehvar Beşiroğlu
(2 October 1965—26 May 2017)

One of the foremost Ottoman historians, Donald Quataert (2005), begins his seminal book
on the Ottoman Empire by asking the question “Why study Ottoman history?” His answers
are mainly intended for an audience from the West European cultural tradition. Therefore,
Quataert lists Ottoman contributions in shaping European history and culture: political
thinkers such as Montesquieu and Machiavelli, who were inspired by Ottoman adminis-
tration; the coffee and tulips Europeans enjoyed; or the smallpox inoculations that protected
their lives; the contributions of Janissary bands to the percussion sections of European
classical music orchestras; and even the baton of drum majorettes in the United States; and
the Turkomania of late eighteenth century Europe. In summary, Quataert discusses
reflections of Ottoman culture in almost all parts of European popular culture, from poetry
to novels, fashion to home design, musical instruments to repertoires, and paintings to
religion. Quataert (2005, 10) notes that even motion-picture theaters were heavily inspired
by Ottoman architecture in New York and other big cities of the United States.
Of course, I would not pose such a question about the study of popular music in Turkey.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that Neo-Ottomanism, as the foreign policy of Turkey’s
Islamist government in recent years, not only has resulted in the involvement of Turkey
in civil wars in North Africa and the Middle East by supporting radical Islamist movements,
but also in an increased interest in the popular culture and thus popular music of Turkey,
especially in these regions. This Neo-Ottomanism was directly reflected in soap operas such
as Magnificient Suleyman, about the powerful Ottoman emperor of the same name. Multi-
culturalism was also an important ideological dimension of domestic policies of the
government in accordance with its Neo-Ottomanism, and coincided with rising world music
practices in Turkey, which resulted in an increasing interest towards Turkey, in turn.
Furthermore, one and a half million Turkish citizens, including around hundred thousands
of Kurds, form the largest minority in Germany as a result of immigration of workers
during the second half of the 1960s. Therefore, not only popular music in Turkey but also
popular musics in Germany is performed by musicians from Turkey, as well. Of course,
Turkish immigrants are not limited to Germany, and thus similar experiences can be seen
to varying degrees in any country of Europe or North America.
xiv • Preface

Thus it seems that Turkey’s popular culture has become globally more visible in recent
years either thanks to popular figures from Turkey or to immigrants originating from
Turkey. The international successes of film directors like Ferzan Özpetek from Italy and
Fatih Akın from Germany, the Palme d’Or won by Nuri Bilge Ceylan at Cannes in 2004,
the Nobel Prize for Literature won by Orhan Pamuk in 2006, Turkey’s third place in the
football World Cup of 2002, the UEFA Super Cup won by Galatasaray in 2000, the
international successes of jazz musicians Aydın Esen and İlhan Erşahin, and the pianist
and composer Fazıl Say, and the Eurovision Song Contest won by Sertap Erener in 2003,
are foremost examples of this trend.
There were also notable musical precursors: Atlantic Records was founded by Ahmet
Ertegün, son of the Turkish ambassador, with Herb Abramson in 1947 in New York. Two
other Turkish names, Nesuhi Ertegün and Arif Mardin joined the company soon after, and
they together recorded and produced some of the top musicians of gospel, jazz, and R&B,
like The Delta Rhythm Boys, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Mary Lou Williams, Sidney
Bechet, Django Reinhardt, Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and Modern Jazz
Quartet.
The company began to collaborate with American and British rock and soul artists at
the end of the 1960s, like Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, and Roberta Flack. As a producer,
Arif Mardin won 11 Grammys and worked with Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, The Bee
Gees, Diana Ross, Queen, Aretha Franklin, Phil Collins, Roberta Flack, Norah Jones, Chaka
Khan, George Benson, Manhattan Transfer, Modern Jazz Quartet, and David Bowie.
Meanwhile, the Turkish singer Dario Moreno became internationally acclaimed during
the 1950s and 1960s, especially in France where he also acted in many popular films. Jazz
trumpetist Muvaffak “Maffy” Falay toured Europe with famous jazz orchestras such as The
Kenny Clarke–Francy Boland Big Band and the Quincy Jones Orchestra, after he was
discovered by Dizzy Gillespie in Turkey. Jazz saxophonist and flute player İsmet Sıral taught
between 1978 and 1980 at The Creative Music Foundation, which was founded by Karl
Berger, Ingrid Sertso, and Ornette Coleman in New York City. Bülent Arel and İlhan
Mimaroğlu were two leading composers of electronic music in the United States. Mimaroğlu
also collaborated with Freddie Hubbard and Charles Mingus, and composed the soundtrack
for Fellini’s Satyricon.
However, this book is not about such international manifestations of Turkish culture.
Rather, it examines practices of popular music in Turkey mainly made for a domestic public
but in the context of mutual relationships between local and global processes. Therefore,
emic perspectives on the issues should be differently revealing than the studies of scholars
from abroad. This could be considered as a chance to balance etic perspectives in the studies
of colleagues from abroad. However, the theoretical approaches of these chapters will be
familiar to scholars from abroad. Antonio Gramsci, Max Weber, George Simmel, Stuart
Hall, Arjun Appadurai, John Tomlison, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Bop Jessop, Ellen
Meiksins Wood, Roland Robertson, Lawrence Grossberg are some of the names whose
theoretical works inform this book.
The content of this book also presents a unique collection with contributions covering
a wide historical period, from the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires to the Republican era
and up to recent times, and a wide range of popular music practices, from the kanto of
 Preface • xv

the Ottoman era to mainstream popular music from Europe and the US in the Republican
era, and from influences of traditional art and folk music in popular music, including arabesk.
It is unique also in the sense that such a comprehensive collection does not even exist in
Turkish.
While colleagues mainly with a background in musicology and ethnomusicology contrib-
uted to this volume, almost one third of the book is written by colleagues with a background
in sociology. In any case, each chapter reflects the interdisciplinary nature of popular
culture and popular music studies. Each section focuses on a different topic with distinct
approaches but within the same overall theme. Therefore, the titles of each section, Histories,
Politics, Ethnicities, and Genres, reflect such thematic categorization and plurality of
approaches. Since each section is summarized in chapter introductions, I would like to
mention two final contributions under the titles Coda and Afterword.
Martin Stokes presents a cosmopolitan perspective on Turkish popular music in his
chapter “Turkish Popular Music in Global Perspective” as the coda of our book. Stokes
discusses some key issues of Turkish popular music especially from 1980 when, as an
“outsider,” he started his fieldwork, continuing through the 1990s and 2000s. He proposed
applying a cosmopolitan perspective instead of scientific detachment and an “outsider’s
perspective” in order to understand popular music in Turkey. This chapter presents an
example of this approach in its discussion of key figures and genres in popular music
practice of Turkey.
The final chapter of the book, “Days of Anatolian Pop: A Conversation with Cahit
Berkay,” presents an interview by Tayfun Bilgin with Cahit Berkay, one of the living legends
of Turkish popular music. Berkay was one of the founders of the Anatolian pop group,
Moğollar, and a prominent film music composer. He answers Tayfun Bilgin’s questions,
which highlight crucial topics of popular music in Turkey. This contribution of Cahit
Berkay—still active both in Moğollar and in the film industry—presents a first-hand witness
of a long period in popular music between the 1960s and recent times.
The planning of Made in Turkey began in 2012. Since then, several political events, some
related to popular music, took place in Turkey.
Around 10 million people rose against the government from almost all of Turkey
during 70 days in the summer of 2013. Although the Justice and Development Party (Adalet
ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) came to power in 2002 with emphatic promises of democra-
tization for the country, its Islamo-fascist character was revealed by the early 2010s as a
result of its harsh neoliberalism and Islamization. The uprising was sparked in June 2013
by the simple issue of protecting the trees of Gezi Park next to Taksim Square, Istanbul,
against being chopped down to make room for a construction project. Around 10 young
people were killed and dozens of people lost their eyes and around 10,000 of them were
seriously injured by tear-gas canisters and plastic bullets targeted at demonstrators by the
police.
Music was an important part of the uprising. Therefore, musicians, music students and
scholars were at the receiving end of state violence. Thanks to IASPM, a declaration of
support, drafted by myself and finished by Ayhan Erol as executive of IASPM’s Turkish
branch, was published with the title, “Declaration of support from popular music scholars
in relation to the current demonstrations in Turkey: Resistance of music against the
xvi • Preface

authoritarian discourse and implementation of the government in Turkey.” This declaration

summarizes the role of music in the demonstrations:1

The music performed by the people of Turkey with pots, pans and whistles is an important
part of the current demonstrations against various aspects of Turkey’s Justice and
Development Party (AKP) government.
There are a variety of grievances such as the authoritarian approach of the government,
its perceived Islamic bias in making laws and making changes to society, and its heavy-
handed approach to the demonstrations including the physical attacks and arrests of
peaceful demonstrators.
The people of Turkey performing with pots, pans and whistles, as well as musicians
including our colleagues and students, are in the streets all day and night, and many of
them are being arrested and injured by police forces acting on behalf of AKP.
All kinds of music, such as jazz, folk, classical, traditional and Latin, are both performed
live at the demonstrations and recorded as video and published on social media. However,
the mainstream musical practices of rock and pop stars of Turkey are almost absent
from the demonstrations, in any way. Amateur musicians are mainly heard at the
demonstrations, especially in İstanbul and İzmir. These amateur musicians perform as
small rock groups, marching brass bands, percussion groups, protest music groups,
polyphonic and monophonic or heterophonic choruses. However, there are also a very
few cases where professional musicians perform, such as the Gezi Park Philarmony
concert or the Gezi Band on the stage in Gezi Park. Some well-known professional music
groups also publish their recent professional recordings composed for the resistance on
the web.
Anyway, the most ubiquitous sound is the “music” of pots, pans and whistles performed
by the people of Turkey resisting the authoritarian approach of the government.
We, as scholars studying music, declare our support for the people of Turkey
performing with pots, pans and whistles, for other musicians, and for our colleagues
and their students.

The uprising marked the breakdown of the coalition between AKP and the Fetullah
Gülen Movement, another Islamic movement whose leader now resides in USA and is
assumed to have dubious relations with the USA government and with CIA. While AKP
was operating against the movement, an unsuccessful military coup happened on July 15,
2016.
AKP used the coup as a justification to suppress not only the Gülen Movement but also
the whole oppositional political actors: Socialists, social democrats, the Kurdish movement,
Turkish nationalists, liberals. As a result of the “state of emergency” declared after the coup
and extended up to date, not only political leaders but several oppositional journalists,
writers, artists and even some mainstream popular music singers, as well as leftist bands
such as Grup Yorum, were arrested.
Tens of thousands of scholars have been fired since from their universities: Hundreds
of them were leftists against the Gülen Movement. In particular, those who signed a peace
declaration between the Turkish State and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) were targeted.
 Preface • xvii

One of them, Betül Yarar, a contributor to this volume, first received a death threat: A big,
red cross drawn at the door of her university office; then she was fired from her job; and
after she was wanted for arrest. Made in Turkey should be considered also as an act of
resistance in these difficult political and social times.

Ali C. Gedik
Balçova, İzmir, May 2017

Note
1. www.iaspm.net/declaration-of-support-in-relation-to-the-current-demonstrations-in-turkey/. Accessed in
July 2012.

Bibliography
Quataert, Donald. 2005. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922, New York: Cambridge University Press.
 Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thank Ayhan Erol whose lectures were invaluable in introducing
the study of popular music to me when I was one of his students during my MSc. in
musicology at Dokuz Eylül University, İzmir. It is a great honour for me to edit a book on
popular music where Ayhan Erol is one of the authors.
It has also been a great honor and pleasure for me to collaborate with the series editors
Goffredo Plastino and Franco Fabbri. I could not imagine a more friendly, understanding,
and supportive team considering the political and professional difficuties I experienced in
Turkey which led to several unexpected delays during the editing of this book. In this sense,
I am also grateful to a number of professors in musicology in Turkey: Şehvar Beşiroğlu,
Ertuğrul Bayraktarkatal, Songül Karahasanoğlu, Nilgün Doğrusöz, and Nermin Kaygusuz.
Unfortunately, we lost Şehvar Beşiroğlu, who was also the author of this collection, at
the very early at the age of 51 which means she could not see it published. She will not be
forgotten by her students and colleagues in Turkey, nor by colleagues from abroad with
whom she either contributed during their fieldwork here or she collaborated abroad both
in music performances and research.
I should also list the names of my friends and colleagues; professor of music sociology,
Orhan Tekelioğlu, and professor of evolutionary biology, Ergi Deniz Özsoy for their support
during these difficult times.
I also acknowledge the support of musicologist Richard Parncutt, not only for taking
over my responsibilities at the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies (JIMS), which the
two of us edit together with Amanda Bayley, but also for supporting me in my professional
difficulties during my editorial work for this book. I am also grateful to the contributions
of my friend and popular music studies scholar Lyndon Way, for the proof-reading of
abstracts in the early stages of this book project, and the contributions of Şebnem Sençerman,
a PhD candidate in musicology, for proof-reading some of the articles. The internationally-
recognized professor of orthopedics İzge Günal has always been a great mentor and friend.
I am indebted to his support and friendship throughout my life, including the period while
the editing this book.
A complete proof-reading of this book has been made by Nick Hobbs. We were so lucky
that Nick Hobbs has been accommodating in Turkey for a long time as a businessman in
music and quite familiar with popular musics in Turkey.
xx • Acknowledgments

It would have been not possible to complete the final editing process without the help
and support of my friend and colleague Levent Ergun, who edited all the volume’s bibli-
ographies and prepared the final general bibliography.
I would also like to thank to all authors for their collaboration and patience during the
whole process which consisted of receiving abstracts in 2012, full-texts in 2015 and final
revisions in 2017. No doubt, it was also not comfortable for them to survive in the politically
harsh times of Turkey.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Production Editor Katie Hemmings,
Editorial Assistant Peter Sheehy, Editor Genevieve Aoki, and Copy Editor Alice Stoakley
at Routledge, and Project Manager Josh Curtis and Managing Director Susan Leaper at
Florence Production for their rigorous work in the publishing process and effort to publish
without any further delays.

Ali C. Gedik
Balçova, İzmir, May 2017
 Introduction
Struggling with and Discussing a
“Republic” through Popular Music
Ali C. Gedik

Despite the name of the book Made in Turkey: Studies in Popular Music, no doubt a lay
reader in Turkey would find the term “popular music” and even its Turkish translation,
popüler müzik, somewhat strange. There is no unique term used by listeners in Turkey,
which encompasses whole practices of popular music, as we researchers do. Listeners prefer
to call their favorite music by the names of the genres—pop, hip-hop, rock, arabesk, metal,
folk, jazz, protest, etc. Nevertheless, the term pop is used ambiguously to address many
popular music genres, especially since the distinction between “Turkish pop” and “foreign
pop,” which emerged in the 1990s, is still in use. Pop is used as an abbreviation for popular
music, especially for the mainstream; and all these terms and their meanings also reflect
the behaviors of audiences, music critics, the music industry, and musicians within specific
historical contexts.
Popular music was officially classified simply as “light music” in contrast to “art music”
during the early years of the Republic. The more specific term of the 1960s, “Western light
music with Turkish lyrics”—defined in contrast to “Western light music with foreign lyrics”—
was also used, even as late as the 1980s. This terminology was invented and disseminated
by the TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation), a State-controlled mass media.
Of course, this terminology belongs to the Republican period and the history of modern
popular music dates back to the last century of the Ottoman era. Operettes, kanto, longa,
sirto, rabbit songs, and waltzes all belong to this era. Dichotomies of Ottoman identity
appear in musical terminology—“Eastern music” and “Western music,” then as allaturca
(Turkish origin) and allafranga (French origin, implying Western), and finally as “Western”
music and “Turkish” music. However, this terminology mainly reflects a distinction between
Western art music and traditional Turkish art music or Turkish folk music, and rather
excludes popular music.
Although the terminology is defined with reference to Western music, it should be noted
that sources of popular music in Turkey also include Arab music—especially from Egypt—
and music from the Balkans and Mediterranean cultures, besides the more local musical
cultures. While the first appearances of foreign musical genres were simply cover versions
either in their original languages or in Turkish, these genres were quickly Turkified. This
kind of musical re-making is widespread in Turkey:
2 • Ali C. Gedik

It has readily acknowledged the vital role of Istanbullian Greeks, Armenians, and Jews
in mediating non-Turkish musical styles and adapting them for Turkish audiences. It
has acknowledged the complex powers and pleasures of the copy, the imitation (Taussig
1993).
To create a Turkish jazz (or tango, or hip- hop, or electronica) is not simply to import
something (and thus recognize a lack), but to exercise and enjoy mastery in rendering
it Turkish.
(Stokes 2010, 20)

In the rest of this introduction, I will present some background for the chapters which
follow. I will first try to define turning points, the moments of transition, when relations
between dominant and popular culture are restructured and transformed, as defined by
Hall (2006, 361), and second, provide a review of popular music studies in Turkey. First,
I plan to sketch a rough picture of popular music in Turkey by defining the historical
turning points since the social and cultural dimensions of specific popular music practices
are well-presented by the contributors to this book. Second, I will focus on popular music
studies, from their emergence in the mid-1980s, which reflect complex mediations on these
turning points.
Although, the aim of this introduction is to enable a straightforward pluralistic reading
of this book, such a background and its main argument inevitably carry the signs of my
singular reading of popular music in Turkey, as the title of this chapter implies. My argument
is that popular music in Turkey most clearly reveals itself when the political, ideological,
and cultural dispositions of the relevant agents towards the “Republic” are considered. In
other words, I argue that popular music is both subject and object in the restructuration
and transformation of relations between dominant and popular culture, which continuously
reshapes the “Republic.”
I use the term “Republic” to address both its physical manifestation and its alternative
“imaginations” to embrace more flexible conceptions of the Republic such as the “Republic
of love” conception of Stokes (2010) who used this idea to identify popular music in Turkey,
as well as more direct ideological and political projections.1 In this sense, studies of popular
music also reflect their own dispositions towards a notion of “Republic.” Needless to say,
the dispositions, agents and “Republic” are not stationary; on the contrary they have their
own histories.

Struggling

1923
No doubt, the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 is the first of several turning
points in Turkey’s cultural life. However, we should set a balance between the continuities
and discontinuities of the Republic with its Ottoman past. While important musical venues
of the Ottoman Empire such as the kahvehane (coffeehouse) and meyhane (tavern) continued,
new musical venues such as the gazino (nightclub) and pavyon (nightclub only for men)
emerged in the Republican era. Still, neither the old nor the new venues stayed unchanged.
 Introduction • 3

Such relationships between the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Republican periods are presented
in Chapter 1.
Starting as early as the 1920s, around the foundation of the Republic, and through to
the 1950s, Western popular music genres and dances such as the foxtrot, charleston, jazz,
tango, mambo, rhumba, cha-cha were listened to and performed by musicians in a few
cities including Istanbul. This shift towards Western popular music accompanied a gradual
disappearance of the popular music of the Ottoman era such as kanto, longa, sirto, and
rabbit songs which are the subject of Chapter 2. Thus there are many continuities as well
as discontinuities between the Ottoman and the Republican eras.
A similar relationship of continuity and discontinuity can be found in the history of
traditional Ottoman/Turkish art music. This musical culture experienced dramatic changes
in form, structure, and context from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. Chapter 3
considers these changes particularly by focusing on the standardization of the tuning system
as a consequence of modernization processes, which transformed this culture into a popular
music practice.
Modernization and Westernization processes started in the nineteenth century Ottoman
Empire and continued through the years of the Republic, but with a very different motivation:
Building a nation-state. Therefore, the main discontinuities can be found in the trans-
formation from a multi-ethnic empire to a nation-state. The “invention” of a Muslim Turkish
identity corresponded to the attempts to force either massive assimilations or migrations
of many ethnic identities of non-Muslim, non-Turkish, and even non-Sunni peoples which
are the most crucial aspects of this transformation. The most important migration was the
population exchange between Turkey and Greece in 1923, consisting of two million people
in total. Therefore, rebetiko, a popular music genre of the late Ottoman era and its venues
in Istanbul and Izmir (Smyrna), mainly disappeared.
A musical revolution, Musiki İnkilabı, was one of the most prominent cultural dimensions
of this “invention” and thus a break with the Ottoman past. This revolution defines the
musical ideal of the Republic as a synthesis of Western art music and Turkish folk music.
However, instead of such a synthesis, the success of the musical revolution was most visible
in the “invention” of Turkish folk music and institutionalization of Western art music,
separately. Especially, the success in the “invention” of Turkish folk music was achieved by
illegitimating traditional Ottoman/Turkish art music and the traditional musics of minorities.
This was not only a matter of music; the crux of the new cultural policies was based on
the rejection of the Ottoman past, which was not considered Turkish. However, neither
traditional Ottoman/Turkish art music nor the traditional musics of minorities completely
disappeared. These musical policies of the new state are considered in detail in Chapter 4.
Finally, a similar pattern of continuities and discontinuities also apply to the following
turning points, as well.

1950s
Nineteen-fifty is the beginning of the multi-party period and the Korean War, which
Turkey took part in at the same time as becoming a member of NATO. After the Second
World War, Turkey was not an exception when the USA both reconstructed and dominated
4 • Ali C. Gedik

Europe economically, politically, and culturally. Furthermore, this year marked a shift away
from the cultural and musical policies of the Republic by the right-wing party elected at
the beginning of this period. In this sense, 1950 marks the start of the liberal transformation
of the Republic which continues till today, as Stokes (2010) argues.
Although the most important places for traditional Ottoman/Turkish art music such as
tekkes (religious lodges) were closed as a consequence of the secular policies of the State
during the formative years, traditional Ottoman/Turkish art music became a fundamental
source for the emergence of one of the foremost popular music genres, Turkish art music,
especially during the 1950s.
New music places such as the gazino, new instrumentation including Western musical
instruments such as the piano, and the recording and cinema industries and radio broadcasts
were the main sources for this genre. Although these industries and broadcasts already existed
beforehand, massive consumption of related cultural products only started in the 1950s. In
this way, Arab music, especially from Egypt, was diffused in the country by these media and
had a profound effect on the new genre. State control over the recording and cinema industries
was much weaker than it was over radio, due to the monopolistic nature of State broadcasting;
however, it was not possible to control the frequency bands of radio receivers which allowed
people to listen to radio broadcasts from nearby countries such as Egypt.
American-sourced popular music had more of an impact than European music of the
past. Jazz and rock ’n’ roll were two of the main genres of this impact. However, it should
be kept in mind that these cultural effects were most visible in a few major cities, especially
Istanbul, where local musicians performed these genres as well.
Despite the more cosmopolitan cultural policies of the new right-wing government,
nationalism never fell off the agenda of official ideology. The Istanbul pogrom of 6–7
September, 1955, was mainly aimed at the city’s Greek minority but Armenians were also
seriously affected.
Not only nationalism but also religious politics gained a new meaning in Turkey during
the Cold War. This new meaning arose in a context where Turkey as a neighbor of the
USSR had become a forward part of NATO against communism. Naturally, left-wing and
working-class organizations found themselves subject to this ideological atmosphere which
meant that coercion became heavier than before.

1960s
A military coup in 1960 against the right-wing government signaled another turning point;
the beginning of a much more liberal period where the dominant cultural map articulated
through popular culture gave rise to a new context. Thus, anti-imperialism and patriotism
took the place of nationalism with the rise of the left both in Turkey and in the world as
a whole, most prominently after the events of 1968.
While performing rock ’n’ roll cover songs continued, two other trends dominated the
popular music scene by the 1960s: 1) Aranjman, the performance of songs of mainly English,
French, and Italian origin in Turkish and 2) performance of folk tunes in the idioms of
Western popular music, both being re-articulations of the official State policy of musical
synthesis.
 Introduction • 5

In particular, the national Golden Microphone contest organized with the sponsorship
of a daily newspaper between 1965 and 1968 promoted such synthesis, as well as original
popular music compositions in contrast to aranjman. As a result, this contest paved the
way for a new genre called Anadolu Pop (Anatolian Rock/Pop). Chapter 5 focuses on this
contest by reviewing the general trends of the 1960s.
The musical practices of minorities, inherited from the Ottoman past, share a similar
fate to traditional Turkish/Ottoman music. Despite Turkish nationalism as the official
ideology, these musical practices did not disappear during the Republican era but became
one of the sources for aranjman. Songs originally sung in Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Ladino,
and other languages of the Middle East and Balkans were also performed in Turkish. Even
in the 1990s when it was no longer relevant to speak about aranjman, minority musical
practices continued to have an important place in popular music as a result of multi-
culturalism both in Turkey and the wider world. Chapter 9 considers these popular music
practices of minorities in detail, focusing on Armenian music.
Although rock music was an important aspect of the 1968 movement globally, the
situation was somewhat different in Turkey. The cultural identity of the 1968 student
movement in Turkey was very much determined by left-wing politics in comparison to the
European or American ’68 movements, in the sense that leaders of the movement were
members of a legal socialist party, who then radicalized and founded illegal armed organi-
zations. While rock music in Turkey was considered to be an aspect of cultural imperialism
by left-wing movement, students in the movement gravitated to folk music where the
performers espoused the discourses of the movement by modifying the lyrics of folk songs
to represent left-wing politics (Gedik 2010).
Massive migration of people in the 1960s, especially Alevis, from the East of Turkey to
the West, provided the majority of folk song repertoire for the movement. Alevis were
subjected to State violence both during Ottoman and Republican times when Sunni Islam
was and is the official religion. Therefore, both Alevis and their music already included
protest as part of living “traditional” Alevi musical culture.
Another military coup in 1971 against the working-class and student movement cannot
be considered as another turning point because of its failure to stop the rising left-wing
movement. On the contrary, the left-wing movement became massive and more radical,
especially by the mid-1970s. In response, radical Islamist and nationalist parties working
against the left were effective as representatives of anti-communist policies in line with the
US and NATO, and thus governmental policies. By the 1970s, mainstream rock stars of
the 1960s evolved into politicized left-wing Anadolu Pop performers. Therefore, while
Anadolu Pop became one of the dominant popular music idioms, it carried significant
influence from left-wing politics. Chapter 6 presents this period by especially focusing on
political music practices, and Chapter 16 presents an interview with one of the foremost
names in Anadolu Pop.
Both aranjman and Turkish art music still survived in the 1970s. The new sounds of
the 1970s can be classified into two trends: Songs based on original compositions within
the Western popular music idiom and a quite new phenomenon, arabesk. The first trend
was represented in both mainstream music and popular protest music. The musical
dimensions of arabesk can be defined as follows:
6 • Ali C. Gedik

Arabesk does not have a “pure” sound. It is a synthesis which incorporates many musical
tastes. What I want to stress here is that it is more often than not simply a national
blend of many indigenous and foreign styles. The makam (mode) and instruments of
traditional Turkish art music and the ayak (scale) and musical instruments of Turkish
folk music are the most important indigenous components of the arabesk sound. The
foreign musical components of arabesk are western musical materials and near-eastern
musical traditions, which bear some resemblance to the Turkish musical heritage.
(Erol 2012a, 47)

Since arabesk was a challenge to the musical ideals of the Republic, it is of interest to
note that it was criticized by both left-wing intellectuals and the State, which was governed
by either right-wing politics or military juntas who were against the left. Arabesk as a genre
is discussed in detail in Chapter 12.

1980s
A turning point as marked as 1960, but with opposite effects, is 1980, when there was another
military coup. The target of the junta was to destroy the left-wing political parties, revolu-
tionary unions, leaders, intellectuals, writers, artists, musicians, and militants. As a result,
hundreds of thousands of people were arrested, tens of thousands of people left the country
as political refugees, hundreds were killed through torture, dozens of revolutionaries were
hanged. Although, the working-class, student, and left-wing movements reorganized at the
end of the 1980s, the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 equalled a deep ideological defeat and
thus the dramatic retreat of the left in the country, as well as elsewhere in the world.
Anadolu Pop was fragmented into Turkish rock and folk music and had disappeared
by the 1980s. Turkish folk music reappeared in a revival movement where “traditional”
performances were particularly originated in Alevi music. This also corresponded to the
weakened relationship of Alevis with the left.
While most of the famous musicians of the left either emigrated abroad or moderated
their politics, a number of young popular music groups survived the revolutionary songs
and discourses of the pre-1980s without having either rock or jazz elements in their sound,
unlike Anadolu Pop. Arabesk also found very strong representatives inside political music.
While intellectuals of the left never accepted this style and its presence inside political
music, it reached mass audiences far beyond the left.
Another new trend of the period was a late reflection of the political nueva canción (new
song) movement of South America of the 1960s. Corresponding to nueva canción, the name
of the group Yeni Türkü (New Folk Song) demonstrates such a deep influence, even though
the sound of the group was more Mediterranean than folk in style and also less politically
oriented when compared to nueva canción.
Finally, all these new styles in varying degrees, in some kind of relationship with left
movements, led to the emergence of a new musical venue, the Türkü Bar (folksong bar)
and the establishment of a new genre, özgün müzik (original music), by the early 1990s.
Chapter 6 also considers the period after the military junta in 1980 by focusing on political
music.
 Introduction • 7

The taverna (tavern) was another new venue and also the name of a genre deeply
influenced by arabesk. It appeared around the early 1980s and survived until the mid-1990s.
In this genre, a male singer accompanies himself on either a piano or an electronic keyboard,
with a repertoire that included arabesk. Arabesk even greatly influenced mainstream popular
music.
Meanwhile, the rise of the Kurdish movement from the mid-1980s through the 1990s
led to great chaos in the southeast of the country. Because of the Kurdish movement and
its cultural actors and politics, Kurdish music emerged as an important popular music
idiom by the 1990s, despite the illegality of speaking Kurdish. The left was a natural ally
of the Kurdish movement and thus protest music incorporated Kurdish music. Kurdish
popular music practices are discussed in Chapter 10.
The State was an important actor in this political and cultural struggle. It tried to
rehabilitate arabesk by sponsoring and supporting “State” arabesk while censuring undesir-
able music through the State TV and radio monopoly until private TV and radio broadcasting
began in the 1990s. The State TV and radio monopoly notwithstanding, Western popular
music continued to be popular throughout the Republic after the military coup. Besides
mainstream music, punk, metal, hip-hop, etc. were all present in varying degrees in Turkey.
In this regard, Chapter 14 considers the appearance of extreme-metal.
However, the advent of private/commercial TV and radio marked a shift in the popular
music scene of Turkey, which enabled both easier access to Western popular music and
the emergence of a more industrial “pop explosion” and star system.
The military coup of 1980 also reshaped official ideology as a synthesis of national-
ism and Sunni Islam—the Turkish–Islamic synthesis. This official legitimation of nationalism
and Sunni Islam led to the rise of various radical right-wing political movements and parties.
Two new styles emerged during the mid-1980s in relationship to these movements: Ülkücü
pop (idealistic pop) and yeşil pop (green or Islamic pop) which became more visible during
the 1990s. Chapter 7 discusses Islamic pop in Turkey in the context of its global appearance.
Finally, Chapter 16 considers changes in popular music in Turkey from the 1980s through
the 2000s from a global perspective.
The 1990s witnessed both the rise of Islamic and radical nationalist movements. Stokes
(2013) regards this period as one where a new Islamist popular culture emerges. Islamization
and nationalism were again the main weapons against the left and Kurdish movements. As
a consequence of political Islam in Turkey, a radical Islamic party, The Welfare Party (Refah
Partisi, RP), became a part of the government for the first time in 1996, sharing power with
a right-wing party. This government had a short life due to the repression of the RP by the
military. Thus, first the RP was closed in 1998 and then a new government formed of a
coalition of center-right parties came to power, as a result of elections in 1999.

2000s
The foundation of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP)
by former members of RP in 2001 and its electoral success in 2002 resulted in 14 years of
power (as of 2016). In this regard, the neoliberal Islamic character of the AKP marked a
turning-point. From the beginning of its power, the AKP represented a complete contrast
8 • Ali C. Gedik

to almost all the symbols and institutions of the Republic as founded in 1923. These changes
were especially political and cultural and thus signs of Westernization and modernization
processes in the Republic. In the case of music, both the State institutions of Western art
music and their symbolic representatives such as the composer Fazıl Say have been attacked
by the AKP either through censorship or new regulations or legal charges.
However, it should be noted that the struggle of the AKP against the Westernization
and modernization projects of the Republic did not lead to an abandonment of these
processes. This was the deadly “mistake” of the AKP’s predecessor, the RP. Rather the AKP
continued these processes by a certain articulation of its neoliberal and Islamic policies.
Pious women wearing headscarves became more visible in the public sphere. Religious men
and women adopting modern means, looks, and ways of living was quite controversial for
secular people. Religious women were also more visible in various mainstream media such
as TV channels and daily newspapers. Similarly, a new well-heeled class of religious people
became more visible in their ultra-luxurious life as a result of their business relationships
with members of the government. One can also say that the liberation of the religious
corresponded to a certain suppression of the secular.
Even jazz has been used in the context of this ideology by the organization of an impressive
annual event during the holy month of Ramadan in Istanbul where foremost international
jazz musicians have performed since 2009. Another recent event was the concert of the
Anadolu Filarmoni Orkestrası (Anatolian Philharmonic Orchestra) at the AKP’s Izmir
congress in 2015. This Western classical orchestra, founded by the government, performed
two pieces composed for the President with religious lyrics. However, the compositions
and standard was so poor that the quality was far from that expected by the genre. Similarly,
the AKP has been quite successful in the construction of its hegemony over almost every
domain of mainstream popular culture. Politically rather neutral figures such as Orhan
Gencebay, the king of arabesk, Teoman, a rock star, and Sertap Erener, a pop star, all to
some extent supported AKP policies. Even some mostly mainstream performers from the
left such as Yavuz Bingöl, Onur Akın, Bülent Ortaçgil, Feryal Öney, and Sezen Aksu, also
to an extent supported the AKP.
Interestingly, the AKP did not particularly support Islamic (or yeşil) pop even though
it is musically compatible with its ideology:

These parties (RP and AKP, acg) have done little, actively, to promote an Islamic musical
culture. But they have actively championed the deregulation of the state media system.
This has meant the end of the musical symbols of the secular state (its folk music
orchestras and so forth), and a proliferation of Islamist FM radio and television stations
requiring content.
(Stokes 2013, 15)

The success of a neoliberal Islamic party needs explanation. First of all, most of the
deputies and ministers of the AKP, and the President and their families were quite “successful”
in business. Furthermore, their business activities intensified after their rise to power.
Therefore, neoliberal policies fit very well with the cadres of the party. The AKP was not
only governing the country through parliament, it was also in power in many municipalities
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The glory of the
Pharaohs
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
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eBook.

Title: The glory of the Pharaohs

Author: Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

Release date: February 3, 2024 [eBook #72865]

Language: English

Original publication: NYC: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1923

Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GLORY

OF THE PHARAOHS ***
 CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
INDEX

By the Same Author

A Report on the Antiquities of Lower Nubia
A Catalogue of the Weights and Balances in the Cairo Museum
A Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt
Travels in the Upper Egyptian Deserts
The Life and Times of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt
A History of Egypt from 1798 to 1914
Madeline of the Desert
The Dweller in the Desert
Bedouin Love
The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt

THE GLORY OF THE PHARAOHS

Arthur Weigall
 T H E G L O RY
OF THE
PHARAOHS
BY

ARTHUR WEIGALL

Late Inspector General of Antiquities, Egyptian Government, and

Member of the Catalogue Staff of the Cairo Museum;
Officer of the Order of the Medjidieh.

Author of “The Life and Times of Akhnaton,” etc.

~

With 17 Illustrations

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1923

Copyright, 1923
by
Arthur Weigall

Made in the United States of America

 PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD
In view of the fact that Mr. Arthur Weigall, while inclined to obscure
himself owing to a distaste for public life, is widely known in several fields
of activity, the Publisher has felt that a short foreword to this volume will be
of interest to those who have wondered as to the author’s identity.
The writer of these entertaining and scholarly essays was born in 1880,
being the son of the late Major Arthur Weigall and grandson of the Rev.
Edward Weigall, M.A., Vicar of Buxton, Derbyshire: a descendant of an
officer of that name who came to England as Equerry to William of Orange
in 1698.
Various members of the family of Weigall have attained distinction in
England as scholars, painters, sculptors, authors, and diplomats; but the
writer of these essays was originally destined for the Army, and for that
reason was educated at Wellington College. Later, however, he matriculated
for New College, Oxford, causing some flutter in that academic circle by
offering Egyptian hieroglyphic texts as his special subject for the
examination; but he abandoned his ‘Varsity career in 1900 in order to go out
to Egypt as assistant excavator to Professor Flinders Petrie.
At the early age of twenty-four, he was appointed by his friend, Lord
Cromer, Inspector General of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, a post for which
his scholarship, his administrative ability, and his great energy eminently
fitted him. This arduous position he held until 1914; and during his tenure of
office he carried out the most important reforms with a view to the
preservation and safeguarding of antiquities, the suppression of lawless
excavation, and the advancement of the science of Egyptology. He was
present at most of the great discoveries made during those years, and in
particular he supervised the excavations in the Valley of the Tombs of the
Kings at Thebes, in which some of the famous royal sepulchres were
discovered.
Besides his administrative and archæological work he found time to make
several daring expeditions into the unexplored regions of the Eastern Desert;
and in these years he also wrote a number of Egyptological books, including
A Guide to the Antiquities of Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia: Travels in the
Upper Egyptian Deserts: The Life and Times of Akhnaton, Pharaoh of Egypt:
The Life and Times of Cleopatra: etc. He also made a considerable study of
the political situation in the Near East; and his book A History of Events in
Egypt from 1798 to 1914, and various papers in the Fortnightly Review, had
considerable influence on British policy. For some time, too, Mr. Weigall
was a member of the Catalogue Staff of the Cairo Museum, and in that
connection wrote an important work of a mathematical character on ancient
Weights and Balances.
These books, and his many papers in the Nineteenth Century, Fortnightly
Review, Blackwood’s Magazine, etc., were received with a chorus of praise;
and he was soon recognised as the foremost writer upon Egyptology, and a
master of felicitous expression and description. His friend the late President
Roosevelt, writing in the Outlook, spoke of him as having “that supreme
quality of seeing the living body through the dry bones and then making
others see it also,” and as being “not merely accurate, but truthful with the
truth that comes only from insight and broadminded grasp of essential facts,
added to exhaustive study and wide learning.”
“Mr. Weigall is one of the best living authorities on Upper Egypt,” said
the Athenæum, “and his delightful books are justly admired.” “He is a
scholar,” said the Times, “deeply versed in Egyptian archæology and history
and himself a partner in many discoveries.... He is an idealist gifted with
insight and sympathy.” The Observer described him as “a scholar who has
let learning quicken and not dull his wits”; and the Pall Mall Gazette spoke
of him as “the key to one of the richest storehouses the world contains.” “He
makes the sights, the sounds, the very air of the Egyptian deserts visit the
senses of his readers with a keenness that is almost painful,” wrote the
Westminster Gazette. “He is the scholar-sportsman,” said the Times again,
“gifted with a fine sensitiveness to the mystery and romance of ancient
things.”
In 1914, after receiving high honours from various governments, and
when his administrative work and his writings had brought him to a position
of eminence, he suffered a breakdown in health, due to his exertions in
Egypt; and he was obliged to resign and to return to England. Here, during
his convalescence, he occupied his spare time by painting designs for stage
scenery; and from 1915 to 1918 many of the leading spectacular productions
at the chief London theatres owed their success to his art.
As in the case of his historical writings, so in that of this hobby, his work
was received with unanimous praise. We read of a ballet of his at the
Alhambra as being “one of the most beautiful stage pictures ever seen”; of a
scene at the Palace Theatre “so exquisite as to make a success of the
production without anything else” (Tatler); of another scene for which “there
is no measure of praise too high” (Sunday Times); and so on throughout the
entire Press.
Mr. Weigall, however, having deeply influenced the whole art of stage
decoration in this country by introducing bold simplicity of design and pure
colour and light effects, did not long continue to spend his time in this
manner; and with the return of health he resumed his archæological work
and set himself to the long task of preparing material for works on Egyptian
art and history, and on comparative ethics, which are not yet completed.
Meanwhile, and perhaps to some extent as a means of livelihood, he wrote
three novels: Madeline of the Desert (1920), The Dweller in the Desert
(1921), entitled Burning Sands in the United States, and Bedouin Love
(1922). These books, again hailed with high tributes from the Press, have
attained great popularity and have passed through many editions. From time
to time he also wrote the lyrics for songs which have obtained wide
appreciation, and he was the author of various little sketches, both dramatic
and comic, which have been seen upon the London stage.
For some months in 1921 he came before the public in another guise. An
article of his in the Nineteenth Century, in which he pointed out the
influence being exercised by the Kinematograph on our national life,
attracted the attention of the late Lord Northcliffe, who invited Mr. Weigall
to write a long series of articles in the Daily Mail on the subject. This led to
an intensive study of the whole subject of “films,” and the articles, of a
fervently patriotic character, had the effect of removing some unpleasant
features from the motion-picture theatres, while the general improvement in
the tone of this form of entertainment is largely due to his influence.
At the time of writing (January, 1923) Mr. Weigall is once more in Egypt,
and further archæological works from his pen may be expected. In
November, 1922, the present Publisher re-issued, and within a few weeks
sold out, a revised (fourth) edition of The Life and Times of Akhnaton,
perhaps the author’s most popular historical work; and it is hoped that this
new volume will be found to be of equal interest and entertainment. The
essays published herein were written between 1907 and the present year.
Some of them appeared as part of a book many years ago; others were
printed in various leading journals; and yet others have been specially
written for this volume. In this regard the Publisher’s thanks are due to the
editors of the Nineteenth Century, the Fortnightly Review, the Cornhill
Magazine, Blackwood’s Magazine, the New Statesman, the Century
Magazine, Putnam’s Magazine, and the Quarterly Review.
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Egyptology in the Open The Necessity of
—
I. Archæology to the Gaiety of the World 26
III. — The Misfortunes of Wenamon 46
IV. — The Preservation of Antiquities 69
V. — The Morality of Excavation 84
VI. — The Temperament of the Ancient Egyptians 109
VII. — Excavations in Egypt 136
VIII. — The Tomb of Tiy and Akhnaton 153
IX. — The Tomb of Horemheb 174
X. — Lower Nubia and the Great Reservoir 198
XI. — A Nubian Highway 216
XII. — The Alabaster Quarries in the Wady Assiout 235
XIII. — A Ride to Wady Salamûni 245
XIV. — The Children of Egypt 262
XV. — An Ancient Egyptian Poem 277
XVI. — The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor 283
XVII. — Theban Thieves 304
XVIII. — The Error of Pompous History 328
 ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Arthur Weigall, 1922 Frontispiece
The Author Standing Upon the Cliffs Between the
Temple of Der el Bahri and the Valley of the Tombs of
the Kings 16
An Egyptian Priest or Religious Official 54
(From a wooden statuette of about B.C. 1800: now in Cairo)
A Human-Faced Lion, Probably Dating from the Reign of
Pharaoh Amenemes III., b.c. 1825 74
Now in Cairo.
The Mummy of Prince Yuaa 94
(The photograph was taken by the Author on the day of its
discovery. The mummy is now in the Cairo Museum)
Excavating the Osireion at Abydos. A Chain of Boys
Handing up Baskets of Sand to the Surface 144
(Photograph by the Author)
The Entrance of the Tomb of Queen Tiy, with a Native
Policeman Guarding it. The Large Tomb of Rameses X.
is to the Left 154
Bust of Akhnaton Found at Tell el Amarna, and now in
Berlin 164
A Statue of Tutankhamon, the Pharaoh whose Tomb was
Discovered by Lord Carnarvon in 1922 184
Now in Cairo.
The Entrance of the Tomb of Horemheb in the Valley of
the Tombs of the Kings 192
The Nile at Philæ, Looking North 212
The Nile at Aswan. On the Hills to the Left is the
Highroad to Nubia 222
Two Views in the Wady Salamûni, Early Morning 252
Modern Egyptian Peasants Beside a Water-Wheel 262
The Pharaoh Rameses II., b.c. 1292-1225 292
(From his statue now at Turin)
Gold Cups and Armlet of about b.c. 1000, Found
Accidentally by a Native in a Mound by a Roadside in
Lower Egypt 320
Now in Cairo Museum.

The Glory of the Pharaohs

 CHAPTER I

EGYPTOLOGY IN THE OPEN

In this first chapter I propose to extol the Egyptologist who works abroad in
the field, in contrast to him who studies at home in the museum; for, in
reading over the papers collected into this volume, I see that there is a sort of
motif which runs through them all, linking them together, namely that the
archæology of Egypt, to be properly appreciated, must be studied, so to
speak, at the lips of the Sphinx itself.
It is an unfortunate fact that the archæologist is generally considered to be
a kind of rag-and-bone man; one who, sitting all his life in a dusty room,
shuns the touch of the wind and takes no pleasure in the vanities under the
sun. Actually, this is not so very often a true description of him. The ease
with which long journeys are now undertaken, the immunity from insult or
peril which the traveller usually enjoys, have made it possible for the
archæologist to seek his information at its source in almost all the countries
of the world; and he is not obliged, as was his grandfather, to take it at
second-hand from the volumes of mediæval scholars. Moreover, the
necessary collections of books of reference are now to be found in very
diverse places; and thus it comes about that there are plenty of archæologists
who are able to leave their own museums and studies for limited periods.
And as regards his supposed untidy habits, the phase of cleanliness
which, like a purifying wind, descended suddenly upon the world in the
second half of the nineteenth century, has penetrated even to libraries and
museums, removing every speck of dust therefrom. The archæologist, when
engaged in the sedentary side of his profession, lives nowadays in an
atmosphere charged with the odours of furniture-polish and monkey-brand.
A place less dusty than the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, or than
the Metropolitan Museum in New York, could not easily be imagined. The
disgusting antiquarian of a past generation, with his matted locks and stained
clothing, could but be ill at ease in such surroundings, and could claim no
brotherhood with the majority of the present-day archæologists. Cobwebs
are now taboo; and the misguided old man who dwelt amongst them is
seldom to be found outside of caricature, save in the more remote corners of
the earth.
 The archæologist in these days, then, is not often confined permanently to
his museum, though in many cases he remains there as much as possible;
and still less often is he a person of objectionable appearance. The science is
generally represented by two classes of scholar; the man who sits in the
museum or library for the greater part of his life, and lives as though he
would be worthy of the furniture polish, and the man who works in the field
for a part of the year and there lives as though he regarded the clean airs of
heaven in even higher estimation. Thus, in arguing the case for the field-
worker, as I propose here to do, there is no longer the easy target of the dusty
antiquarian at which to hurl the javelin. One cannot merely urge a musty
individual to come out into the open air. That would make an easy argument.
One has to take aim at the less vulnerable person of the scholar who chooses
to spend the greater part of his time in a smart gallery of exhibits or in a
well-ordered and spotless library, and whose only fault is that he is too fond
of those places. One may no longer tease him about his dusty surroundings;
but I think it is possible to accuse him of setting a very bad example by his
affection for home comforts, and of causing indirectly no end of mischief. It
is a fact that there are many Greek scholars who are so accustomed to read
their texts in printed books that they could not make head nor tail of an
original document written in a cursive Greek hand; and there are not a few
students of Egyptian archæology who do not know the conditions and
phenomena of the country sufficiently to prevent the occurrence of
occasional glaring errors in the exposition of their theories.
There are three main arguments which may be set forward to induce
Egyptologists to go as often as possible to Egypt, and to urge their students
to do so, instead of educating the mind to the habit of working at home.
Firstly, the study of archæology in the open helps to train up young men
in the path of health in which they should go. Work in the Egyptian desert,
for example, is one of the most healthy and inspiring pursuits that could be
imagined; and study in the shrines overlooking the Nile, where, as at Gebel
Silsileh, one has to dive into the cool river and swim to the sun-scorched
scene of one’s work, is surely more invigorating than study in the
atmosphere of the local museum. A gallop up to the Tombs of the Kings puts
a man in a readier mood for a morning’s work than does a ride in a street-car
or an omnibus through crowded thoroughfares; and he will feel a keenness
as he pulls out his notebook that he can never have experienced in his
western city. There is, moreover, a certain amount of what is called
“roughing it” to be enjoyed by the archæologist in Egypt; and thus the body
becomes toughened and prepared for any necessary spurt of work. To rough
it in the open is the best medicine for tired heads, as it is the finest tonic for
brains in a normal condition.
In parenthesis an explanation must be given of what is meant here by that
much misunderstood condition of life which is generally known as
“roughing it.” A man who is accustomed to the services of two valets will
believe that he is roughing it when he is left to put the diamond studs in his
evening shirts with his own fingers; and a man who has tramped the roads all
his life will hardly consider that he is roughing it when he is outlawed upon
the unsheltered moors in late autumn. The degree of hardship to which I
refer lies between these two extremes. The science of Egyptology does not
demand from its devotees a performance of many extreme acts of
discomfort; but, during the progress of active work, it does not afford many
opportunities for luxurious self-indulgence, or for any slackness in the taking
of exercise.
As a protest against the dilettante antiquarian (who is often as
objectionable a character as the unwashed scholar) there are certain
archæologists who wear the modern equivalent of a hair shirt, who walk
abroad with pebbles in their shoes, and who speak of sitting upon an easy-
chair as a moral set-back. The strained and posed life which such savants
lead is not to be regarded as a rough one; for there is constant luxury in the
thought of their own toughness, and infinite comfort in the sense of
superiority which they permit themselves to feel. It is not roughing it to feed
from a packing-case when a table adds insignificantly to the impedimenta of
the camp; it is pretending to rough it. It is not roughing it to eat canned food
out of the can when a plate might be used: it is either hypocrisy or
slovenliness.
To rough it is to lead an exposed life under conditions precluding the
possibility of indulging in certain comforts which, in their place and at the
right time, are enjoyed and appreciated. A man may well be said to rough it
when he camps in the open, and dispenses with the luxuries of civilisation;
when he pours a jug of water over himself instead of lying in ecstasy in an
enamelled bath; eats a meal of two undefined courses instead of one of five
or six; twangs a banjo to the moon instead of ravishing his ear with a sonata
upon the grand piano; rolls himself in a blanket instead of sitting over the
library fire; turns in at nine p.m. and rises ere the sun has topped the hills
instead of keeping late hours and lying abed; sleeps on the ground or upon a
narrow camp-bed (which occasionally collapses) instead of sprawling at his
ease in a four-poster.
A life of this kind cannot fail to be of benefit to the health; and, after all,
the work of a healthy man is likely to be of greater value than that of one
who is anæmic or out of condition. It is the first duty of a scholar to give
attention to his muscles, for he, more than other men, has the opportunity to
become enfeebled by indoor work. Few students can give sufficient time to
physical exercise; but in Egypt the exercise is taken during the course of the
work, and not an hour is wasted. The muscles harden and the health is
ensured without the expending of a moment’s thought upon the subject.
Archæology is too often considered to be the pursuit of weak-chested
youths and eccentric old men; it is seldom regarded as a possible vocation
for normal persons of sound health and balanced mind. An athletic and
robust young man, clothed in the ordinary costume of a gentleman, will tell a
new acquaintance that he is an Egyptologist, whereupon the latter will
exclaim in surprise: “Not really?—you don’t look like one.” A kind of
mystery surrounds the science. The layman supposes the antiquarian to be a
very profound and erudite person, who has pored over his books since a
baby, and has shunned those games and sports which generally make for a
healthy constitution. The study of Egyptology is thought to require a depth
of knowledge that places its students outside the limits of normal learning,
and presupposes in them an unhealthy amount of schooling. This, of course,
is absurd.
Nobody would expect an engineer who built bridges and dams, or a great
military commander, to be a seedy individual with longish hair, pale face,
and weak eye-sight; and yet probably he has twice the brain capacity of the
average archæologist. It is because the life of the antiquarian is, or is
generally thought to be, unhealthy and sluggish that he is so often regarded
as a worm.
Some attempt should be made to rid the science of this forbidding aspect;
and for this end students ought to do their best to make it possible for them
to be regarded as ordinary, normal, healthy men. Let them discourage the
popular belief that they are prodigies, freaks of mental expansion. Let them
shun pedantry and the affectations of the dons’ common-room as they would
the plague. Let their first desire be to show themselves good, useful, hardy,
serviceable citizens, and they will do much to remove the stigma from their
profession. Let them be acquainted with the feeling of a bat or racket in the
hands, or a saddle between the knees; let them know the rough path over the
mountains, or the diving-pool amongst the rocks, and their mentality will not
be found to suffer. A winter’s “roughing it” in the Theban necropolis or
elsewhere would do much to banish the desire for perpetual residence at
home in the west; and a season in Egypt would alter the point of view of the
student more considerably than he could imagine. Moreover, the appearance
of the scholar prancing about on his fiery steed (even though it be but an
Egyptian donkey) will help to dispel the current belief that he is incapable of
physical exertion; and his reddened face rising, like the morning sun, above
the rocks on some steep pathway over the Theban hills will give the passer-
by cause to alter his opinion of the students of antiquity.
As a second argument a subject must be introduced which will be
distasteful to a large number of archæologists. I refer to the narrow-minded
policy of certain European and American museums, whose desire it is at all
costs to place Egyptian and other eastern antiquities actually before the eyes
of western students, in order that they may have the comfort and
entertainment of examining at home the wonders of lands which they make
no effort to visit. I have no hesitation in saying that the craze for recklessly
dragging away unique monuments from Egypt to be exhibited in western
museums for the satisfaction of the untravelled man, is the most pernicious
bit of folly to be found in the whole broad realm of Egyptological
misbehaviour.
A museum has three main justifications for its existence. In the first
place, like a home for lost dogs, it is a repository for stray objects. No
curator should endeavour to procure for his museum any antiquity which
could be safely exhibited on its original site and in its original position. He
should receive chiefly those stray objects which otherwise would be lost to
sight, or those which would be in danger of destruction. He should make it
his first endeavour not so much to obtain objects direct from Egypt as to
gather in those antiquities which are in the possession of dealers or private
persons who cannot be expected to look after them with due care, or make
them accessible to students.
In the second place, a museum is a storehouse for historical documents
such as papyri and ostraca, and in this respect it is simply to be regarded as a
kind of public library, capable of unlimited and perfectly legitimate
expansion. Such objects are not often found by robbers in the tombs which
they have violated, nor are they snatched from temples to which they belong.
They are usually discovered accidentally, and in a manner which precludes
any possibility of their actual position having much significance. The
immediate purchase, for example, by museum agents of the Tell el Amarna
tablets—the correspondence of a great Pharaoh—which had been discovered
by accident, and would perhaps have been destroyed, was most wise.
In the third place, a museum is a permanent exhibition for the instruction
of the public, and for the enlightenment of students desirous of obtaining
comparative knowledge in any one branch of their work, and for this
purpose it should be well supplied not so much with original antiquities as
with casts, facsimiles, models, and reproductions of all sorts.
To be a serviceable exhibition both for the student and the public a
museum does not need to possess only original antiquities. On the contrary,
as a repository for stray objects, a museum is not to be expected to have a
complete series of original antiquities in any class, nor is it the business of
the curator to attempt to fill up the gaps without thought of the
consequences. To do so is to encourage the straying of other objects. The
curator so often labours under the delusion that it is his first business to
collect together by fair means or foul as large a number as possible of
valuable masterpieces. In reality that is a very secondary matter. His first
business, if he be an Egyptologist, is to see that Egyptian masterpieces
remain in situ so far as is practicable; and his next is to save what has
irrevocably strayed from straying further. If the result of this policy be a poor
collection, then he must devote so much the more time and money to
obtaining facsimiles and reproductions.
But the curator generally has the insatiable appetite of the collector. The
authorities of one museum bid vigorously against those of another at the
auction which constantly goes on in the shops of the dealers in antiquities.
They pay huge prices for original statues, reliefs, or sarcophagi; prices which
would procure for them the finest series of casts or facsimiles or would give
them valuable additions to their legitimate collection of papyri. And what is
it all for? It is certainly not for the benefit of the general public. It is almost
solely for the benefit of the student and scholar who cannot, or will not, go
to Egypt. Soon it comes to be the curator’s pride to observe that savants are
hastening to his museum to make their studies. His civic conceit is tickled by
the spectacle of Egyptologists travelling long distances to take notes in his
metropolitan museum.