Konya

Today we were bussed about 500 km eastwards to Konya. The countryside is high mountains with snow on them and large fertile valleys between. There were lots of cherry orchards in flower. We even saw a few flocks of sheep moving across the countryside with the shepherd walking in the middle of the sheep. The houses in the towns and villages look just like European houses. Four square with red tiles on the roofs.

At Konya, we were shown round the school/establishment set up in the 12th century for Dervishes. All very interesting . There were a few coats on show dating from 12/13th century. The basis was ivory moire sIlk. Rather nice. The cloths used to drape over the coffins were heavily embroidered with tulips, carnations and other flowers. Like stump work only in gold thread.

But the highlight was a room full of books!!! They mostly had Arabic style binding in dleather. Imagine a normal leather bound book where the back cover had an extension in the leather terminated with a third cover so that when this was folded over, it covered the front cover. Lots of gold tooling with very fine detail. Another book had octagonal pages about two inches across. Calligraphy was readable but the writer must had good eyesight. The whole was contained in an octagonal box.

I saw these outside the library where photography was allowed.

Note the tulips which are the Turkish national flower. The Museum shop of course had nothing about books and only a very expensive book about calligraphy.

 

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