Once thought lost, a small bronze fifteenth century medallion portraying Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481) is up for auction at Bonhams in May. It has been valued at between £1.5 million and £2 million by the auction house. Commissioned by Sultan Mehmed II before his 1453 conquest of Constantinople to wear as a lucky charm […]
Five more sections of Topkapı Palace have been restored and opened to the public: the Department of Holy Relics (Mukaddes Emanetler Dairesi), the Conqueror’s Pavilion (Fatih Köşkü), the Pages’ Barracks (Seferli Koğuşu), the Dormitory of the Treasury (Hazine Koğuşu) and Mecidiye Pavilion (Mecidiye Köşkü). President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and First Lady, Emine Erdoğan, attended an […]
Historian and author Giancarlo Casale will be an online talk about Osman Agha of Timişoara, or Osman Ağa of Temeşvar as Turks would say. Hosted by the Anglo-Turkish Society (ATS), Professor Casale puts the spotlight on this fascinating Ottoman military officer from the seventeenth century. In 1688, in the tumultuous aftermath of the failed Ottoman […]
It’s not every day that a prince comes to see you, but that’s exactly what happened one day in March, when His Royal Highness, Şehzade Orhan Osmanoğlu visited Shacklewell Lane Mosque in East London. A resident of Istanbul and the great grandson of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II, Şehzade Orhan was making his first ever visit […]
Turkey has congratulated Boris Johnson on becoming the new Prime Minister of the UK, with hopes that he will use his Turkish heritage to further strengthen ties between the two countries. The congratulations were led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who wrote on Twitter (in Turkish): “I congratulate Boris Johnson [on becoming] the 77th Prime […]
A portrait of Ottoman ruler Süleyman the Magnificent has been sold for more than £5.3 million at an auction in London. The 500-year-old painting went under the hammer on Wednesday, 1 May, for a total of £5,323,500. That was more than 15 times the initial estimate of £250,000 to £350,000, according to auction house Sotheby’s. […]
On Friday evening, food historian Priscilla Mary Işın will give a talk at the Yunus Emre Institute based on her book, Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine, in which she explores the rich culinary traditions of the Ottoman Empire. Published last year, the book examines in detail the production and consumption of food by […]
Thousands of photos documenting the final decades of the Ottoman Empire have been made available online. The photographs, spanning the 19th and early 20th centuries, can now be studied and downloaded for free following a painstaking digitisation process by the US-based Getty Research Institute. The originals are held at the institute’s Pierre de Gigord Collection, […]
Vaccination, one of the most important medical discoveries in history, is the method of injecting a weakened form of an infection into the body to prevent getting the disease later in life. Our body meets the deactivated form of the virus or bacteria in the vaccination, builds up the immune system against it and is […]
110 years ago, Winston Churchill raged to the Liberal Cabinet about Great Britain’s “detestable oppression” towards Cyprus, claiming that the British Government’s treatment of the island “constituted a blemish upon Imperial policy of a peculiarly discreditable kind.” What did Churchill say about Enosis? What was the “maiming, crippling toll” he accused His Majesty’s Government […]
