text:
6 p., 26 leaves of plates : col. ill. ; 57 cm.
"Description historique des planches" edited from the notes of Fossati by A. de Beaumont (6 p.).]]>
[x], 218 p., 70 leaves of plates : ill. (some col.), plans ; 43 cm.
Added title-page in colors.
P. [x] misnumbered vi.]]>
2 v. : ill. (some folded), folded maps, plans (some folded) ; 39 cm.
Title vignettes; head-pieces; initials.
"Cum privilegio Sacrae Regiae Majestatis."
Engraved portrait plate in vol. 1 by Philippe Simoneau, after Sébastien Le Clerc. Engraved head-pieces by Pierre Giffart.
Includes indexes.
Vol. 1: p. xix misnumbered xxii.]]>
3 v. in 1 (11, [1], 224; 248, [24]; 246, [22] p.) ; 38 cm.
Colophon: Basileae, ex officina Ioannis Oporini, anno Salutis humanae M.D. LVII. mense Martio.
Each volume includes its own index.
Printed marginalia; decorated initials.
Printer's device (Arion riding a dolphin while playing the violin) on each title page and repeated in a different form with motto "In via virtuti nulla est via" on verso of final leaf.
Signatures: [alpha]⁶ a-s⁶ t⁴ u⁶x-y⁶ 2a-2u⁶ 2x⁴ 2y-2z⁶ (2z6 blank) 3a-3t⁶ 3u⁸ 3x-3y⁶.
Volume 2 has title: Ioannis Zonarae magni Drungarij Biglae, & primarij à secretis, Tomus secundus, quo Romana historia ab urbe condita usque ad Constantinum magnum, breuiter perstringitur: Hieronymo VVolfio interprete. Cum rerum & uerborum memorabilium indice copiosa.
Volume 3 has title: Ioannes Zonarae monachi Tomus historiorium tertius, quo Christianorum imperatorum res gestae, à Constantino Magno usque ad Alexii Comneni obitum describuntur: Hieronymo VVolfio interprete. Cum rerum & uerborum memoravilium indice copioso.
[2] leaves, [4], 50 p., LVII leaves of plates : ill., plans ; 55 cm.
"The publisher to the reader," signed: Robert Wood.
Pages 25, 27, 29 misnumbered as 26, 28, 30 respectively; p. 25 (i.e. 24), 26, 28, 30 not numbered.
Plate I is comprised of 3 parts.
Plates engraved by P. Fourdrinier, J. S. Müller, T. M. Müller, Jr., and T. Major after drawings by G. B. Borra.
In this issue, the first erratum on p. 50 is: "Page 9.l.26. for emperor's, read emperors.]]>
1 portfolio : ill. (some col.), plans ; 91 cm.
Issued in two installments.
Accompanying Installment booklets, containing Foreword and list of plates, issued with same title: Saint Sophia in Istanbul: an architectural survey.
"Installment" booklets (introductory folders), laid in: Installment 1: ([8] p., [29] [i.e. 26] leaves of plates ; 44 cm.); [Installment 2]: ([8] leaves, [46] leaves of plates ; 44 cm.).
Installment one lacks plates 6, 7, and 8 (Elevations: "to be included in Second Installment of publication").
Dates from Foreword in Installment 1 (1965) and in Addendum in Installment 2 (1986).
Installment 1, t.p. verso: Distributed by J. J. Augustin, Publisher, Locust Valley, New York.
Installment 2 booklet has imprint on cover: Washington, D.C. : Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.
Study sponsored by William Emerson until 1957, then by Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies.]]>
Title-page printed in red and black; title-page engraved vignette by P. de Loisy; added engraved t.p. of Leopold I in an allegorical landscape (Vienna?) signed "Philippus Biffius delin. Simon Durellus sculp."; tailpieces; decorated initials.
First published in 1579.
Dedication dated January 1683.
Includes errata: p. [7]-[10].
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.]]>
Romanized record.
Text in double columns, except Proomion.
Added t.p., engraved.
Preliminary page [xxvii] noted as page [xvi] (in Greek numbers).]]>
Translation of: Istorii͡a i pami͡atniki vizantitskoi emali.
Translated from the Russian by Florentin Trawinski. Cf. p. vi.
Issued in an ed. of 200 numbered copies.
Illuminated preface, initials, tail-pieces, end-papers, and fore-edges.
Boards heavily decorated in black and gold on white. Title-pages, dedication, plates and end pieces engraved in gold and colors; arguments to each chapter printed in gold letters within borders of gold and colors; initials printed in black only. The frontispiece (Zvenigorodskĭǐ's portrait) was included only in such copies as were presented by Zvenigorodskĭǐ to his personal friends.
Includes index.
"Written by Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov and produced as a presentation copy for Tsar Alexander III in 1892, this sumptuous volume describes early Byzantine, Kievan and Georgian enamels that were part of Aaron Zvenigorodsky's collection. In 1910, the collection was bought by J. P. Morgan. In a 1912 New York Herald interview, Jacques Seligmann, who was intimately involved in the negotiations for acquiring the collection for Morgan, said: "Nobody can imagine the beauty and rarity of Mr. Morgan's collection. I, who have had every article in my hand, cannot find words to express its marvelous beauty and quality." In 1917, four years after Morgan's death, his son presented the pieces from the Zvenigorodsky collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art"—Metropolitan Museum of Art, Thomas J. Watson Library online catalog, viewed September 30, 2013.
"Very little is known of the collector Aaron Zwenigorodskoi himself. It is believed that he developed an interest in medieval art during a visit to Spain in 1864. By the end of the nineteenth century, his collection included 43 early Byzantine, Georgian, and Kievan enamels of the highest quality. At the time, his collection was considered the premier collection of Byzantine and related enamels, but now it is recognized that some of the pieces are of questionable provenance"—Dumbarton Oaks online exhibition Before the Blisses: Nineteenth-Century Connoisseurship of the Byzantine Minor Arts, viewed June 4, 2015 (http://www.doaks.org/resources/online-exhibits/before-the-blisses/collectors/the-zwenigorodskoi-collection)]]>
The Life of St. Basil the Younger, one of the longest and most important middle Byzantine saints' lives, presents the life of a holy man who lived in Constantinople in the first part of the tenth century. Usually described as a fictional saint, he had the distinction of residing in private homes rather than in a monastery, performing numerous miracles and using the gift of clairvoyance. The vita, purportedly written by one of Basil's disciples, a pious layman named Gregory, includes many details on daily life in Constantinople, with particular attention to slaves, servants, and eunuchs. Two lengthy descriptions of visions provide the most comprehensive source of information for Byzantine views on the afterlife. In one, the soul of an elderly servant Theodora journeys past a series of tollbooths, where demons demand an accounting of her sins in life and collect fines for her transgressions; in the other Gregory describes his vision of the celestial Jerusalem, the enthronement of the Lord at his Second Coming, and the Last Judgment.
This volume provides a lengthy introduction and a critical edition of the Greek text facing the annotated English translation, the first in any language.
Dumbarton Oaks Studies 45
Concordance of Greek word forms:
Please note that Word's font conversion is erratic. If the Greek is not legible, the problem is in the font that your version of Word has decided to use, not in the underlying data (which is Unicode). You need to change the font to one on your system that you know supports the Greek Extended Unicode plane.]]>
Although he probably never set foot on a battlefield, the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886–912) had a lively interest in military matters. Successor to Caesar Augustus, Constantine, and Justinian, he was expected to be victorious in war and to subject barbarian peoples to Rome, so he set out to acquire a solid knowledge of military equipment and practice. The Tactical Constitutions, or Taktika, were the result. First published by Dumbarton Oaks in 2010 as part of the Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae series, and now available in this updated, revised paper edition, this is the first modern critical edition of the complete text of the Taktika, including a facing English translation, explanatory notes, and extensive indexes.
Dumbarton Oaks Texts 12; CFHB 49
CM: How I got there? Well, I applied, simply, for this post – I was in Paris before – and, I mean, I'd never heard of Dumbarton Oaks. I was told about it by a chap called Jim Breckenridge, who was a friend in Paris, and he was, I think – he was at Princeton and he was a Byzantinist. And he told me about Dumbarton Oaks and said, "Why didn't you apply?" And I said, "Well I did, and I got it." Now when I got there, it was a very small place and it was very informal, which was very nice. There was practically no administration. It was all run by one spinster called Miss Carpenter, who was enormously efficient, and that was it. There was a director, who was Jack Thacher, a friend of the Blisses, and there was a director of studies, who was never there – most of the time he wasn't there – called Bert Friend. Now Bert Friend is rather forgotten, now, but he was at the time a very – sort of – prominent man, an influential man. I think he was a professor at Princeton and he would come down to Dumbarton Oaks from time to time and conduct business, have a bottle of bourbon late at night. Now, Bert Friend was – how should I describe him? A fantasist. He was full of ideas, and his project at the time had to do with the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, which he sort of conceived as a monument of enormous importance. And he tried to reconstruct its decoration and its architecture and its archaeology and one thing and another. And most of the faculty in Dumbarton Oaks was busy with this project. Well, I mean, Bert Friend did not know any Greek, which had hampered him, so he had Glanville Downey translating all the Greek texts. There was Paul Underwood, who did all the beautiful drawings of how Friend conceived this church to be like. He had Father Dvornik, who investigated the legends of the apostles. And all of this was supposed to come together. Where I fitted in was – a key figure in this topic was the patriarch Photius, and I was encouraged to translate his sermons, his homilies, which I did and that eventually was published, I can't remember when, '58 or something of the sort. So that was my initial job there, but in the end Bert Friend got tired of Holy Apostles and started imagining that the key monument was something called the New Church, the Nea Ekklesia, from the same period of Basil the First. And then, all this started again: reconstruction, its decoration, its architecture, and so forth and so on. And after that I can't remember, and I think that Bert must have died right after that. I got on with him, I mean – he was – I thought he was a nice chap. Now, that was my initial impression, you know, that it was very informal, the sources were excellent, and of course the library had been built up at the cost of enormous labor on the part of the faculty. And they would all sit down once a week and go through book catalogues and they built up, I mean, this wonderful library, which, you know, was better than anything else in the world, at the time. I liked the informality, you know. I mean, now it's a bureaucratic nightmare. You have to wear tags around your neck and one and another, which I can't stand. But I mean, then, we came and went as we liked, and I think we did fairly good work, I think. And after a while I got involved in the fieldwork in Istanbul and later in Cyprus. And that's another story.
ABF: So can you tell me more about how it was to live – I suppose you lived in the Fellows Building?
CM: At first, yes. Well, it was pleasant. We were all gathered together at lunch and dinner, which was served, and one could smoke there at the time and, of course, there were scholars, who came for shorter or longer visits, so that one got to know a wide range of people – you know, eminent people, who would come for a while. And I forgot to mention the oldest member of the group, who was Vasiliev, who had a great reputation at the time. I think he died in '53, so that I must have known him for about two years, and he had a kind of little Russian coterie there, including Mrs. Scheffer, who was the ex-princess of Volkonskaya.
ABF: Was she also the librarian?
CM: She was – yeah. She looked after the Slavic books and she was an absolutely charming woman and a devout believer in the Orthodox Church. And I was also partly an honorary member of the Russian corner. And so Vasiliev would reminisce about his old days. I mean, I remember he went to Constantinople, I think about 1910, with what was then the Russian Archaeological Institute, and he traveled in Asia Minor. And he was also an Arabist, you know, so he was into testimonials there between Byzantium, you know, and the Arabs. And, you know, he was also a really keen musician and a ladies' man, in spite of his old age. But he was a bear of a man, not very tall but sort of massive. I mean, of the other members, I liked Father Dvornik very much. He was a very jolly man, an excellent cook. He would entertain us to dinner with enormous rations of central European food and lots of drinks, also. It took you a couple of days to recover from his meals. But then he went on and he wasn't – at the time, the Vatican was not very much in favor of close ties with the Orthodox Church, which was what Dvornik really wanted, so he didn't receive his promotion to Monsignor until much later. But then eventually he got it – the purple socks, whatever it is that you can wear. Well, is that enough for the time being?
ABF: Do you have more? More is better than less.
MM: You mean this is all you have to say about the entire time you were at Dumbarton Oaks?
CM: No, no, no. When I first got there.
MM: Oh, okay. Just the first two years? Is that how long you were a Junior Fellow?
CM: Yes, until I got my doctorate.
ABF: I thought you were a Junior Fellow from 1951 to 1953 and a Fellow from 1953 to 1954.
CM: Yes. I got my doctorate in '53 and that's when you got promoted to Fellow.
ABF: What about Sirarpie Der Nersessian?
CM: Well, she was a very wily lady. She lived in that cottage there – what was it called?
MM: Where what's-his-name lived? The gardener?
CM: Yes.
MM: And Kazhdan and Ševčenko?
CM: That's it – one half was occupied by the gardener, Mr. Kearney, and she had the other half with her sister, who was called Arax. And they were very – sort of – correct and bourgeois, very French, very Frenchified. But she had been at Wellesley, I think, before and I think she was head of the art department at Wellesley when she was transferred to Dumbarton Oaks. But she worked on her Armenian manuscripts, which was removed from whatever people were doing. She was a perfectly pleasant person and I can't think of any colorful incidents.
MM: What did you think of her scholarship?
CM: Well, she was a good scholar.
MM: [to ABF] Would you like to know such things?
ABF: Yeah, yeah.
CM: She was a good scholar in her field. I mean as far as the Byzantine field goes, she made a new – she worked in manuscripts and iconography. She was very competent at that.
ABF: So who did you form the closest intellectual relationships with during these first years?
CM: I can't say that I did with anyone. I am, sort of, very largely self-taught and I can't say that I've been greatly influenced by anyone in my life, which is probably a "dual bag – possibly Ševčenko.
ABF: So when did you first meet Ševčenko?
CM: Well, it must have been about '52, I think, or thereabouts. He was sort of floating between jobs at the time, if I remember correctly. Apart from that, I don't know that I was especially influenced by anyone. I mean, I must have learned a lot from both people who were there and the visitors, people like André Grabar, who would come from time to time, but I had known him in Paris. Ostrogorsky, who was a great scholar. I can't remember who else would come.
ABF: What about Kitzinger?
CM: Kitzinger I never got on very well with. I mean, he was obviously a man of enormous learning, very much a prima donna, I thought. And concerned – well, I mean, he was an art historian, of course – and he was concerned mostly with style, with a sort of historical background in the monuments, which is what interested him more. But for him, style was something that sort of was – it existed by itself, so to speak. And later we came to clash over items of policy. But anyway that came later.
ABF: And Paul Underwood?
CM: Paul Underwood, we got on very well together. He was in charge of fieldwork at the time when I got into it also, so that he was, you know, close to me as far as the work goes. He was not a man of ideas, you know. He was a really nice chap. He was an architect by training and he knew the practicalities of architecture, which was very good. He made elaborate drawings.
ABF: Did you know his work on the Kariye Djami?
CM: Oh yes. I mean, I worked there also.
ABF: So, did you go to Istanbul and work with him?
CM: Yes. Yes, I think after a certain date I went over here.
ABF: To England.
CM: No, to Istanbul.
ABF: Here, being...
CM: Yeah. [Laughter.] And I worked on all the monuments that were being done at the time: I mean Kariye Djami, Fethiye Djami, Pammakaristos, St. Sophia, of course. I worked in all of them. And later we started working on Cyprus, also.
MM: Macedonia?
CM: Macedonia, no. There was no fieldwork in Macedonia.
MM: Angold?
CM: Angold came later. And I remember going to Macedonia with Underwood and Kitzinger, whenever that was, fifty-something, '54, '55.
ABF: What were you excavating?
CM: Oh, we were not excavating. We went on a tour to see the churches and we had a driver from Istanbul, who took us in a jeep. The place was still wild at the time, but we saw all the main monuments. It had to have been about '54, '55.
ABF: So, after your fellowship.
CM: Well, I'm very bad in years. I just can't remember what happened when. I have an accurate reconstruction, but...
MM: In '54 – you went for all of '53 and '54 and then what happened?
CM: Oh gosh...
MM: You were still there.
CM: I was still there.
MM: Do you have the chronology?
ABF: Yeah, I have – well, my chronology has a gap between '51–'54 at Dumbarton Oaks and then '57–'63 as a professor at Dumbarton Oaks.
CM: Yes.
MM: But you were still there, weren't you? Between '54 and '57?
CM: Oh yes, yes I was there.
MM: But were you a professor then? What were you?
CM: No. Well, I must have been...
MM: Just a Fellow?
CM: A Fellow or a lecturer. I can't remember. I hate the title of "lecturer". Maybe I did.
MM: Maybe you were a lecturer. But he was still there all the time.
ABF: But were you done with your work on the homilies?
CM: Well, that came out, I think, in '58.
ABF: OK, so perhaps –
CM: And then I was working mainly on fieldwork.
ABF: So, did you – because your book The Mosaics of St. Sophia of Istanbul came out in '62...
CM: Yes.
ABF: So, you finished the homilies by –
ABF: And then you began to work extensively on the fieldwork.
CM: Mostly, yes.
ABF: So, who were you working most closely with at that point?
CM: Well it was Paul Underwood. I mean, it's funny. I just –
MM: We should have brought your own bibliography to remind when things were published.
ABF: Well, I have a bibliography. A kind of bare-bones bibliography, right here, but it's not detailed at all. But yeah, I have here Mosaics of St. Sophia, '62. And then it's just your books: The Art of the Byzantine Empire in '72. But let's stick with –
MM: There are two hundred –
ABF: – the two hundred in between [laughter].
MM: Which might flag up some memories about the years.
CM: Yes. I just can't remember the years.
MM: No, well, I wasn't around so I don't remember.
CM: Now, in Cyprus I think I must have been working there in '63, I think. Oh, another person who was very much a part of this team was Ernest Hawkins, who was the restorer. And he did all the – sort of – the practical work of actually uncovering the mosaics and frescoes, assemblage, and I was very closely involved with Ernest Hawkins. He was an Englishman, who trained as a sculptor; never went to college. You know, he was a practical man, you know, an artist, if you like.
ABF: So were you working with him at Dumbarton Oaks?
CM: No, no I met Hawkins –
MM: Out in the field they were working together.
CM: I didn't have to come to Dumbarton Oaks and he worked –
MM: He worked for Dumbarton Oaks.
CM: Yes. In Turkey and in Cyprus.
MM: Before that he worked for the Byzantine Institute.
CM: Yes, yes.
MM: With what's-his-name.
CM: Whittemore. Thomas Whittemore.
MM: Dumbarton Oaks inherited all the fieldwork of the Byzantine Institute, isn't that correct?
CM: Yes.
MM: Yeah. So the Byzantine Institute was based in Boston, was it?
CM: Well, it was a kind of a fictional organization.
MM: Today maybe it would have a website.
CM: And in fact, I mean, Thomas Whittemore sort of played a considerable part in veering Mrs. Bliss towards Byzantium. He was a sort of ghostly presence at the back of the door.
ABF: Hollander Woodall spoke to me about Thomas Whittemore, actually.
CM: Oh yes.
ABF: She remembered him.
CM: I remember him also. He was a fraud in some ways, you know, but he did a lot of good, simply by initiating hirings and – I mean, he didn't know anything very much, you know, but he was a great organizer and according to legend he persuaded Ataturk to turn St. Sophia into a museum. He was given permission to uncover the mosaics, which is partly true, but I'm not sure that he persuaded Ataturk to do anything. Anyway, I mean, Whittemore, I knew him fleetingly.
ABF: So what about Mrs. Bliss?
CM: Well, Mrs. Bliss would turn up every day for tea. And she presided over this silver tea service.
MM: It was part of this informality of Dumbarton Oaks.
CM: Yes [laughter]. This happened I think almost every day. And she expected the scholars to come down and make intelligent conversation. Now, I'm not sure why she chose Byzantium, apart from the influence of Thomas Whittemore. She must have thought that it was something, you know, very unusual and that, you know, she could sort of become the patron of this very recherché field. I suppose so.
MM: When did they start collecting things, though? I mean, was that a consequence –
CM: There was also Royall Tyler.
MM: Was that a consequence of Whittemore or was that in addition or before? I mean, is that known?
CM: I'm not sure at what stage Royall Tyler came in.
MM: Wasn't he maybe Mr. Bliss' godfather, or – I thought there was some sort of a family tie like that. And of course his father had already collected, so it must have gone back – didn't he, Royall Tyler?
CM: Yes.
MM: I mean, that – what was his father's name? Was it – what was Tyler's first name?
CM: Bill, wasn't it?
MM: Oh, Bill, of course. Yes, Royall Tyler was – yes, sorry. That's his father, because he – I don't remember when he published –
CM: He collected, I think, in the '30s.
MM: He also published something.
CM: He published something, which, title and what? – something and title –
MM: I know, I can't remember quite what it was. It had these big plates with everything original, all the major, many major pieces, one of which, I think, is down at Dumbarton Oaks, which he had acquired, right?
CM: There was also another figure, a man called Howland Shaw, who was in the diplomatic service and a friend of Mr. Bliss, and he had served in some diplomatic capacity in Turkey and collected Byzantine seals, so that the seal collection that is now at Dumbarton Oaks is partly that of Howland Shaw, so that must go back to the '30s, also. Well, anyway, and I don't know why Mrs. Bliss got into this subject, but she thought that, well, I think she expected the scholars to produce a kind of wonderful and readable history of Byzantium with beautiful pictures all dedicated to her, or something of the sort. She disliked Germans and adored the French. She wanted something in the style of Charles Diehl, I think.
ABF: She spoke French often, didn't she?
CM: She spoke quite well, and she also spoke – what was it? – Swedish or something. Maybe some Spanish also. And Mr. Bliss ended up as ambassador in –
MM: Argentina.
CM: Argentina. And she always [unintelligible]. But anyway, I... She was not at all stupid, she was, I mean, a woman of some culture and intelligence, I would say.
ABF: Do you have memories of these social occasions with her?
CM: Well, I never got really close to her, you know, apart from the tea parties, which were a daily event.
MM: Didn't they have the concerts already?
CM: Oh they had concerts, yes.
MM: Lectures? There were many occasions to gather together.
ABF: But didn't she also give meals occasionally to the Fellows after symposia?
MM: There were very extravagant – well, not extravagant – very...
ABF: Lavish.
MM: Elegant. Voluptuous.
CM: Voluptuous, yes, yes.
MM: Always. I mean, I don't know anything before 1964, but maybe that went back.
CM: Yes. The concerts were there from the beginning and those were also –
MM: Stravinsky.
CM: Yes. – were organized by Jack Thacher, mostly. And Libby Bland, I suppose, had something to do with them.
MM: (to ABF) Have you talked to Sue Boyd?
ABF: I haven't.
MM: Okay, because she knows all about the collection, the history of the collection and everything, and the house and stuff, you know, talking about when the collections were put together.
CM: But she came later, didn't she?
MM: Sue did, yeah. Libby was there right at the beginning. Libby is not here anymore. I imagine that Sue has, you know, information about history of stuff.
CM: Yes.
ABF: So, what sort of tone did Mrs. Bliss set for you all?
MM: She called everybody "Mister," didn't she?
CM: Yes. Very formal. It was very formal.
MM: There was no "Professor Kitzinger."
CM: No. "Mister."
MM: Mister.
CM: Yes. Apart from the formality [unintelligible].
ABF: Was there a feel of Europe in Dumbarton Oaks at that time, because most of – there were very few Americans, as it were.
CM: Well, I mean, Underwood was an American. Downey was an American.
MM: But there were an awful lot of Europeans, weren't there?
CM: Oh yes. Absolutely.
ABF: Lots of central Europeans.
CM: I mean, there were hardly – well, very few American Byzantinists.
MM: Well, what – was – Meyendorff was there, wasn't he? Meyendorff? Or did he just come occasionally?
CM: He just came, I think, occasionally.
MM: Okay, so it wasn't really – I couldn't remember.
CM: And he may have been a member for a year. But he was a European, of course. I mean, Dvornik was a European. And Der Nersessian was a European. Kitzinger was a European. At the time, as I said, there were very few American Byzantinists. And then the people like Vasiliev were the, sort of, pioneers in introducing the subject to American universities.
ABF: What about Thacher?
CM: Thacher. Yes, well, where do you start with Thacher [laughter]? He – and I like him, I must admit – the trouble with Thacher was that he had no seriousness of purpose. You know, I mean, he... was a very rich man, of course. And, you know, he did as he pleased. And I think that his main concern was to get some very exciting loot for the museum, which he did. And he had a dealer, antique dealer, who was George Zakos, who came from Istanbul. And a good part of the collection now was bought by Jack Thacher from Zakos.
ABF: What do you think of the collection?
CM: What do I think of it?
ABF: Yeah. That Thacher put together.
CM: Well, it's a very good collection, you know, but, I mean, it was done in a way that is impossible now, you know. It was – it simply would not be legal. But you know, I mean, on that basis the curators and directors were judged – at that time, on the basis of what they acquired – and if you bought something worth a million bucks then that was a great success, so from that point of view Jack Thacher was a very successful museum director.
ABF: Were you aware of, at the time, of the collection of Pre-Columbian art?
CM: Oh yes, I was aware of it. I didn't know anything about the objects. They looked hideous and horrible to me [laughter], but anyway it was there. And the collection itself – I mean the main part of it – that was before this fancy new building was put up. Then it was in the main building. It's a very, sort of, select group of objects and it's all, you know, gold and ivory and silver and that sort of thing, and all the objects are beautiful, you know, but –
MM: The pre-Columbian?
CM: No, no.
MM: Oh, I'm sorry. The Byzantine –
CM: But yes, it's not –
MM: Archaeological.
CM: – what you'd call a study collection. It's more a collection of beautiful objects. But you know it's quite an oddity that it could be assembled and built in the 20th century.
ABF: What was your impression of the administrative hierarchy?
CM: Well there was Jack Thacher, who held the purse strings, and as I said there was Miss Carpenter, who administered everything. After a while, she acquired a financial secretary called Mrs. Hammack, and there was Libby Bland, who looked after the collection. And that, I think, was about it.
MM: Well, when did people like Julia Warner –
CM: Julia Warner was brought in by Downey, I think. And she was – she looked after the publications.
MM: Fanny Bonajuto? Did you talk about Fanny?
CM: Fanny was brought in by Kitzinger, but I can't remember what she was supposed to be doing.
MM: Well, I think she helped with publications in a certain sense. She did the photograph collection.
ABF: How about the gardens?
CM: Well, I don't know. The gardens looked after them – well, Mr. Kearney –
MM: [Laughs.] They didn't look after themselves. Quite the opposite. [Laughs]
CM: Mr. Kearney looked after the gardens. It was a great pleasure to have them there and especially the swimming pool. I know that Mrs. Bliss was very much mystically attached to the gardens. She called them "noble elements," whatever that meant.
MM: I just think it provides a lyrical painting.
CM: Yes. Yes. Noble elements.
MM: We have a picture of it – we have a picture of the noble elements. A book cover – did you ever publish this, on the cover of a book [laughs]? It has a picture of Mrs. Bliss on it, doesn't it?
CM: Yes.
MM: And Jack Thacher.
CM: Yes.
ABF: Who did this?
MM: We did it together.
ABF: You did it together?
MM: And Jack Thacher sitting on a cloud. Little other elements.
ABF: That sounds great. Is it in your home?
MM: Our dining room, yes.
ABF: Tell me more about the "noble elements."
MM: Don't they mention it in the dedicatory inscription on the front of the building?
CM: Somewhere or other, yes. I don't know if there was a garden library at the time or not. I don't remember it.
MM: You're still thinking back to your very earliest...
CM: Yes.
MM: Because you do remember it was eventually built.
CM: Oh, yes, yes.
MM: Well, my year in '64 there was certainly a garden library. So it was some time between '54 and '64, but you don't, you're not sure...
CM: Maybe it existed earlier.
MM: I think it hadn't been there that long. When was the Pre-Columbian gallery built? Do you know?
ABF: I don't know...
CM: It was Philip Johnson.
MM: It was Philip Johnson.
ABF: I think it was the late '60s. I don't think – I think it opened after Mrs. Bliss died.
MM: No, no, no, because I had my first office in there in 1964, and she was still alive then, so –
ABF: Okay, then I'm confused.
MM: That's alright, but I think it might have been just about the time I came. I think. I don't think – I wasn't anywhere else before that, so – oh, excuse me – '65. '65 I came, not '64.
ABF: Yeah, then it would have been the early '60s. It definitely wasn't, I know it wasn't –
MM: – the '50s.
ABF: Yeah, it wasn't in the '50s; I know that.
CM: Beginning at the beginning, those objects were not exhibited.
MM: I see. They were packed up.
CM: Mhm.
ABF: Okay, no, okay, because it was Mr. Bliss who didn't see it and it was kind of his thing, the pre-Columbian thing was kind of his part.
MM: I think Mr. Bliss died –
ABF: – before, I think, yeah, and that's why – Mr. Bliss died before the Grierson [sic], the, yeah, he died before the gallery opened. I think.
MM: Yes, I think so, because when I came in '65 the gallery was open.
ABF: And she died in '69.
MM: Right. I heard some ghost stories about Mrs. Bliss.
ABF: Yeah.
MM: You've heard some?
CM: Yes.
ABF: Dressed in white, wandering around –
MM: – the garden. A couple of others.
CM: I never saw the ghost.
MM: No, but I heard them at the time. And other people heard them.
ABF: Well, let's move on to your professorships, '57 to '63, and then [to MM] you jump in at '64.
ABF: '65? Okay.
MM: I mixed up. It was '65.
ABF: Okay. Because you were called – in the archives, you're called the instructor-lecturer in Byzantine Archaeology, assistant professor of Byzantine Archaeology, executive editor of Byzantine publications. So it sounds like you were doing...
MM: Busy.
ABF: Yeah. So tell me about how you came to this professorship and –
CM: Well, I suppose they had to give me a title, so, you know, I sort of progressed slowly from instructor to whatever it was – lecturer or something – to assistant professor at the usual steps, you know, whenever I continued doing my stuff. I taught at Harvard in maybe '58 and at Berkeley sometime in the early '60s, I think. I can't remember.
ABF: Because Ševčenko went to Berkeley around –
CM: He was there before.
ABF: Kantorowicz left. And he went to Princeton.
CM: He went to Princeton.
ABF: And then Ševčenko went to –
CM: Yes.
ABF:– Berkeley.
CM: And then he left.
ABF: Right. And he went to Columbia.
CM: He went to Columbia. Yes. That is correct. So, you know, I mean, I continued doing my stuff and again fieldwork, plus, you know, some of these other concerns like the art sources and a book on Byzantine architecture.
ABF: So, this is while you were working on the book on the mosaics of St. Sophia?
CM: I think after that.
MM: The architecture was right about the time you left Dumbarton Oaks.
ABF: Yes, yes.
MM: More around '63.
CM: The mosaics of St. Sophia was, well – I mean, I went to Switzerland to investigate the archives of the Swiss architect who had restored St. Sophia in 1847.
ABF: Who was that?
CM: Fossati. And the existence of these archives was known to Whittemore, which he never bothered really to look at the stuff. So it occurred to me that it may be worth looking into them, which I did, and I went to Switzerland for about a month and went through all these papers which nearly, I mean, opened up the whole subject of what mosaics were there and where exactly they were. And I don't know whether you saw in the paper yesterday that they have just uncovered a wonderful face of a seraph or cherub in St. Sophia. Did you see that?
ABF: No. Where in St. Sophia?
MM: In the pendentives.
CM: In the pendentives.
MM: They're covered up, there.
CM: Huge. Stars.
MM: Little metal things on top of their faces.
CM: And it's all there, and this is all recorded in Fossati's papers. Anyway, I mean that was, I think, worth doing.
ABF: Was anybody helping you with this, or were you on your own?
CM: No, I was on my own. I mean the papers were not difficult to read. They were mostly in Italian, you know, so there was no difficulty there. Yes, and that was worth doing.
ABF: So you were working on that during the first professorship from '57 to –
CM: I guess so, I guess so, yes. I don't remember what else I was doing at the time.
MM: All in the bibliography, may I remind you.
ABF: Because then you came to London right after that.
CM: I came to London in '63 and I stayed for five years, and then I went back to Dumbarton Oaks, which may have been unwise in some ways. But anyway, I lasted five years there.
MM: In London or at Dumbarton Oaks?
CM: Both.
ABF: Why did you come back?
CM: Where?
ABF: To Dumbarton Oaks.
CM: Well, I was rather bored in London, I must admit. It was a job that in some ways was very good. I mean it carried no obligations at all, you know. It was just a chair that was there, you know, like this sort of chair. And anyway, not expected to do anything at all – but in the end I got rather bored with it, and I thought that what with the fieldwork of Dumbarton Oaks that, you know, I could be more useful and contribute something more important than sitting in London. Anyway, it was a personal decision and maybe it was unwise, I don't know
ABF: So you sort of crossed – he came to London and you [MM] went in '65, you said.
MM: I came to London in '65, yes. As I said, we were a lot of different levels there, but [to CM] when you went back to Dumbarton Oaks was Romilly Jenkins there? Had he been there earlier? Because Romilly Jenkins had been, I think, his predecessor as the chair in London.
CM: Yes. Now, Romilly Jenkins died in '69.
MM: Something like that.
ABF: I think so. It was right around the same time that Mrs. Bliss –
CM: Yes. So he must have been – let's see, '63 to – I came back to Dumbarton Oaks in '67.
MM: Well, you went in '63 and you were away for five years. It sounds more like '68.
ABF: It says – my information says that you were back at Dumbarton Oaks '68 to '73.
CM: Yeah.
ABF: For your second professorship.
CM: That's it.
MM: When did Romilly Jenkins go to Dumbarton Oaks?
ABF: That I don't know.
MM: Because he was the director, I mean director –
CM: – a director of studies.
ABF: I know that he was there for part of your – the tenure of your second professorship. He died – I'm pretty sure it was in '69.
MM: Yeah.
CM: Yes.
ABF: Most things seemed to happen in '69.
MM: Big year. It was a big year. Elsewhere, revolutions –
ABF: '69 was a big year.
MM: – yes '69 – landing on the moon –
ABF: – Martin Luther King –
MM: – Martin Luther King, yes. Robert Kennedy.
CM: Yes, well Romilly Jenkins was a friend, I think I can say.
MM: When did Kitzinger go to Dumbarton Oaks? Do you know that? I'm just curious.
CM: At the very beginning.
ABF: Yeah, Kitzinger was there, yeah, in like, even in the '40s I think.
CM: Yes, yes.
ABF: He was there before you were.
CM: Before me, yes.
MM: Because he had been at the British Museum.
ABF: And where was Ihor Ševčenko in your life, in all this?
MM: When did he go?
CM: I mean, I think I first met him at Dumbarton Oaks when he was sort of between jobs.
ABF: In the early '50s.
CM: In the early '50s, and I can't give you the exact year. I remember talking to him in that paneled room, whatever it's called.
MM: The Founders' Room?
CM: The Founders' Room, yes. Now, he was a man of many ideas and interests.
MM: Ihor became Director of Studies after Kitzinger? Just trying to remember –
CM: For a very short time.
MM: I know it was for a short time. I was just trying –
ABF: Kitzinger was '65 and Ševčenko was '66.
CM: Those were the turbulent years, there.
ABF: [to MM] That must have overlapped with you, because –
MM: Well Kitzinger was my first boss, if you can put it that way. I mean, I didn't work directly for him but he was in charge of what I was doing, and then there was Ihor, and then I went away in '67, I think.
CM: And there was Loerke.
MM: Yes, I think that's when I came back. I think Ihor was still director, yes because – well, you finish. I won't start coming in with my chronology.
CM: Yes, where were we?
MM: You were with Romilly Jenkins.
CM: Yes, well, poor Jenkins drank himself to death, which was very unfortunate. He was a very able man. But somehow something gave away in him. And, you know, he just dropped dead one day.
ABF: And around that same time, Paul Underwood also died.
CM: Yes.
MM: I think maybe he died the year before. Somebody started saying that every autumn somebody died, because I think that Jenkins did die right at the beginning of the academic year. Maybe Paul Underwood had died the year before that, because you came back –
CM: There are obituaries.
MM: Yeah, obituaries, but we don't have them right her. But I mean you and Paul Underwood overlapped for a year, didn't you, when you came back? And then you succeeded him as director of fieldwork – is that what it was?
CM: Yes.
MM: So he must have died the year before Jenkins and then Jenkins – well, you obviously have this all written down somewhere.
CM: Yes.
ABF: Do you remember how you came to hold the second professorship? Who was it who invited you back?
MM: Jack Thacher did, didn't he?
CM: Yes, I was sent, I believe, a letter that was signed by all the faculty members saying "Please come back," which was very sweet.
MM: You still have that letter?
CM: Probably somewhere. I mean, Jack Thacher was rather more guarded, and I'm not sure that he wanted me back.
MM: Oh, I thought you told us – well –
CM: I think he was.
ABF: But then he stepped down also, because then you get Tyler, right, during your second professorship. Tyler took over.
CM: Yes. And Tyler followed the party line.
ABF: So how was your relationship with Tyler?
CM: Reasonable, I think. Reasonable. He was a gentleman. I don't think there was any great trouble. At least, I couldn't remember any sort of quarrels.
MM: And Tyler was a diplomat, also, as you know. He'd been ambassador to the Netherlands, I think, rather than Argentina, and I mean – not that Thacher couldn't have been as Mr. Bliss had. Yes, I think Thacher was not a diplomat [laughs].
CM: No.
MM: He wanted to, you know – things had to run smoothly. And I think they did.
ABF: Did you feel that he continued the sort of aristocratic tone?
MM: Yes, he did have the same kind of personality that Jack Thacher did. You know, I mean, Jack Thacher just did whatever he wanted and said whatever he wanted, I think you said in the beginning.
CM: Yes.
MM: Whereas Mr. Tyler, I think, was much more like a diplomat –
CM: Mhm.
MM: – very, sort of, reserved and restrained. Very nice but you know he sort of operated more as if you had to behave in a certain way. I don't know that Mr. Bliss was like that, though. Maybe Mr. Bliss was more – I never knew him, but –
CM: I had a conversation with Mr. Bliss.
MM: But I thought he was maybe more relaxed.
CM: Yes.
MM: I mean, unless sort of – well, with his wife, sort of very –
CM: Very formal, yes.
MM: Very formal and –
ABF: Tyler's wife?
MM: No. Mrs. Bliss.
ABF: Oh, okay.
MM: Mr. Bliss was more sort of –
CM: – more relaxed.
MM: – a more relaxed person. And Mrs. Bliss was more sort of formal, as you were saying. And then I think maybe Mr. Tyler was more like Mrs. Bliss, maybe. Very proper.
ABF: Because you were there for that transition, right, because you were –
MM: Yes, I was there. Well, I went away myself and came back – I went away in '67, as I remember – right at the end of '66, and then it was in the year, sort of the following autumn, I came back, I think. Yeah. No, it couldn't have been that fast. But anyway, I came back – must have been by '68. I was back, but I can't remember if I came back late '67 – I remember the time of year. I'm just trying to remember what we were just talking about – the Martin Luther King assassination and all of that, you were saying. That wasn't '69, that was earlier, that was '68, wasn't it? I came back in '68, yes.
ABF: Because you worked on a photography collection in '73.
MM: Sorry?
ABF: You worked on the –
MM: I worked on the photograph collection until '73
ABF: Right and you were curator for the last year.
MM: And, I became the curator. I was – well, for a period I had three jobs, one at the National Gallery, one at Dumbarton Oaks, and one teaching school, which was where all the rioting broke out when Martin Luther King was assassinated.
ABF: Must have been a big deal in – it must have been really especially affecting the –
MM: Oh, at that time yeah, that's why I should remember exactly what year it was that I came back to Dumbarton Oaks. I worked there for that period part-time, working at these other two places, and then they invited me to come back full-time which I did then late '68.
ABF: I'm pretty sure it was '69.
MM: No, because of these reasons I just said –
ABF: You think it's –
MM: Yeah.
ABF: Okay.
MM: About the time Romilly Jenkins died in late '69, I had already been there for a year, because I left in late '66 at the very end of the year. My recollection is going to say goodbye to Ihor, who was the director then – of studies – and [laughs] – maybe I shouldn't say this – but Ihor said, "You do understand, Marlia, you're not coming back?" [Laughs.] I said, "Yes, I understand." I couldn't wait to get out of there. And at the same time he had a friend visiting him who he introduced me to, who's Cyril. And I just remember standing around by the window. I was waiting to get out because I had to go somewhere, but that was '66 and then I was away for about six months and then I came back. I had been doing graduate school part-time, and I went back to do that full-time, and then after that I took up these three jobs I just mentioned to you, and they went through the first part of '68, which took me through the assassination of Martin Luther King and all the rioting that broke out right in my school. And then after that, that makes that '68.
ABF: Okay. So you two first met at Dumbarton Oaks.
CM: Yes.
MM: Yes, as far as I know. Previous life – [laughs].
ABF: You met through Ševčenko.
MM: Well, you know, if it hadn't been through Ševčenko, it would have been through somebody else the next day or something – it was such a small place – but yes.
ABF: OK. So what about your relationship with William Loerke – because he was Director of Studies during your second professorship?
CM: Yes. They were somewhat stymied, you know, since I was not very much in favor of his appointment. I mean, his credentials were not very good, wouldn't you say?
MM: I mean, he succeeded Ihor. I'm just trying to remember all of it.
CM: It was one of those rather uncomfortable situations that – Kitzinger went up to Harvard, and Ihor was supposed to be the Director of Studies. He fell out with Jack Thacher immediately, and there was a question of whom to appoint. I think it was Kitzinger who pushed Loerke.
MM: A fellow art-historian.
CM: Fellow art-historian, and also no threat to him. And I was against Loerke, so that our relations were not very happy.
ABF: He knew.
CM: Oh, of course he knew. Looking back, I have nothing against Loerke, you know. He hadn't done very much. You know, he had published a couple of articles and that was it.
ABF: [to MM] And you knew, you must have known Loerke?
MM: Oh, I mean – And he has stayed on. I don't know if he is still there now but –
CM: Is he alive still?
ABF: If he is, he's not –
MM: – there anymore.
ABF: – willing to talk. Or can't talk, or –
MM: Yes, I'm not sure how long he remained Director of Studies, because after you left – when did Constable come down?
CM: Yes.
MM: I mean I don't know if there was anybody between them.
CM: Well, we should go and check the dates.
ABF: Constable, yeah – so much chronology. Yeah – Constable in the '70s.
MM: Yeah, but we both left in '73 with Ihor and –
ABF: Constable, let's see if I can get the chronology out – why don't we pause this for a moment?
ABF: Alright, so we're back, and – so – can you both tell me about your opinions and impressions of the discussion in the early 1970s to move Dumbarton Oaks back to Cambridge?
MM: Cyril, you were directly involved. I just heard about it.
CM: Well, I mean – I was against it. The problem was that, being in Washington, Dumbarton Oaks was cut off from teaching. There was a perfectly good argument that, you know, a research institution should be where the teaching is. That's something that could not be solved. On the other hand, there was the question of what Mrs. Bliss wanted, when she gave the money. And her wishes had to be respected, I thought.
MM: There's also the Classics center – whatever it was called – which was also Harvard.
ABF: Center for Hellenic Studies. That's still there.
CM: That's still there, but then that had a much smaller endowment. It was too small for Harvard to wish to sink its teeth into. It just didn't count, you know, while Dumbarton Oaks carried a good endowment, which could be put to other uses. So, I was against it, but that didn't make much difference.
ABF: So who was for it?
MM: Harvard.
CM: Harvard was for it.
ABF: Was there anybody within Dumbarton Oaks, though?
CM: I think Ihor may have been ambivalent, but I'm not sure.
MM: Was Kitzinger – he chaired discussions sometimes, but he was no longer at Dumbarton Oaks. Wasn't that a turning point?
CM: Yes, we had some meetings in Cambridge –
MM: – there were meetings.
CM: – which were somewhat acrimonious.
MM: That's what I remember.
CM: I mean I've got all of these papers somewhere, but – yes, sorry, I can't remember now.
ABF: But there was a discussion that you remember, that you attended?
CM: Oh yes.
ABF: Chaired by Kitzinger.
CM: Yes.
ABF: And did you – were you there?
MM: No, I was just sitting at Dumbarton Oaks. I heard about it and I'm not sure – well, this was not long before I left and you left, so I'm not sure how much time there was between the meeting and things sinking in as to what the consequences were going to be for Dumbarton Oaks in the coming year or something, because everyone exited.
ABF: Because that's around the same time that there was also the elimination of the tradition of Dumbarton Oaks professorships, because you were one of the last ones.
CM: Yes.
ABF: What did you think of this?
MM: Well, I think – I said what people now have to say about it, what subsequent people can say about it, that it wasn't the same place, and it changed character completely. And of course in a way I feel that this sort of ambiguous relation with colleagues in adjacent subjects – that everybody's competing for some of the same funding; one experiences it here, too. And I think this is unfortunate, and at Dumbarton Oaks you might not have felt that so much, because it's, not isolated, but it's removed from the sort of hurly-burly of Harvard itself, but understanding that all this was happening because other people would be happy to make use of some of this up there for their other subjects. It was rather unfortunate. Someone chose to endow this subject and I think that's their choice and the money was accepted on those conditions.
ABF: So how would you characterize the way that the relationship between Dumbarton Oaks and Harvard developed over the '60s and the beginning of the '70s?
CM: I don't know.
MM: In one sense, the timing of it is striking, that it all came out when Miss Atkins [sic] had just died in '69. So you can't help but wonder if it hadn't already been discussed sometime before and maybe people were waiting for her, since her husband had already died some years before and – she was in her nineties, wasn't she?
CM: Oh, she was quite ancient.
MM: Yeah, getting there. So maybe at the time nobody noticed anything, but then looking at it retrospectively you might think that they'd always had this idea of changing things around once they had a chance. And I don't know whether there are other well-known cases of this sort of thing happening with endowments. That would be interesting to know. I don't know if anybody's written a good doctoral thesis on the subject or any think tanks are looking at it. You know, universities suddenly want money for one thing and instead they're given money for something else. I'm sure they think of ways they can massage the situation to, you know, to their advantage. I think it's probably a great temptation.
ABF: You can also take a university to court for –
MM: I hope so. If there's any money left to take it to court. I mean, I suppose the administration at Dumbarton Oaks could do that. But if they change the administration so much that there's nobody left to do it, and they had no children –
ABF: Especially when Harvard controls who's in power.
CM: And they have very good lawyers, too.
MM: So I don't know exactly – I mentioned earlier, on this particular – threat, you can call it. But I don't know what role the Trustees played in all of this, who I imagine are prominent people in Washington and maybe from outside of Washington – I don't know, don't remember – you know, not just this one person, but maybe other people tried to help mount a resistance. I should think that's what their role would be, wouldn't it? To protect the institution against Harvard?
ABF: Yeah, because in '73, right around when things were changing a lot, that's when you left and took up a position here.
CM: Yes. That was more or less forced on me.
MM: Cause and effect.
CM: Yes. It would have been very unpleasant to stay on after all the fights.
ABF: The fights with –
CM: Well.
ABF: Loerke.
CM: Loerke and Kitzinger. I mean I could have stayed on, but –
MM: As Loerke did.
CM: As Loerke did, but I didn't think it was a very healthy situation.
MM: Whereas this was a promising situation.
CM: Yes.
MM: So, now they're moving the Byzantine studies center here.
ABF: And you [MM] also left in '73.
MM: Yes. I left at the same time. I went back to graduate school. I'd been doing a master's part-time while I was at Dumbarton Oaks, and so I wanted to go back full-time. I did, getting a second master's at the Courtauld and then I went on to do a doctorate here, and so this was what I did after I left.
ABF: Because then in 1982 to '87 you were co-directors of the Photographic Survey of Late Roman Mesopotamia, which was funded by Dumbarton Oaks, so that's – had you not had contact, had you distanced yourself from –?
MM: Well, we were just very busy. I mean I took a very long time doing my thesis, for various reasons, part probably financial, but I was just – you were allowed to spend a long time and I wanted to do something that would take a long time, so I took it. But, Cyril was lecturing in Paris every year for a month, and there was just a lot of stuff to do here, teaching and building up things here, so no I don't – I'm just trying to think: was there anything other than that? We went to symposia there, didn't we?
CM: At the time, yes.
MM: Yes, David Wright had a symposium, I think you maybe would gave two lectures out or something. Something. We went there for a month before that. That was about '82, I think.
ABF: Yeah, because –
MM: And I gave a lecture at a symposium that Robert Thomson was co-organizer of. I think that was in –
CM: "East of something"...
MM: I did something with Syria and Armenia or something.
ABF: There was, yeah, and you – D.O. funded a publication called Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium.
MM: That was in the Walters Art Gallery. And that's while Robert was director, and I was a guest curator at the Walters, planning that.
ABF: And this is before the Gary Vikan days.
MM: Gary Vikan was there. It's when he started, so it was an exhibition, but we took the first year – the year before the exhibition I went there at the beginning of it and the end of it to look on the objects there – and then at the end we had a symposium. There was a big exhibition in Baltimore. It was all just their own stuff plus loan things from other museums, and then there was – so it's focused on the Walters – but then the attached symposium was held jointly at the Walters and Dumbarton Oaks.
ABF: Okay.
MM: Robert was the director then and then Robert funded – when he was director, they funded some analysis of silver that was carried out at the Smithsonian, which was very important, and I'm only now getting a chance to publish it because it took a very long time for the Smithsonian to process the samples, but that was another Dumbarton Oaks connection.
ABF: Okay, because you were a summer fellow.
MM: I was a summer fellow in '87.
ABF: And that's when you were working on the silver plate.
MM: This was while the silver plate – Yes.
ABF: Okay.
MM: Yes, and that was something that I decided to go onto different, that was different from what that stuff – that stuff was church silver and I wanted to do domestic silver so I went to Dumbarton Oaks for a month and did that.
ABF: So who were you hanging out with when you were there?
MM: In '87?
ABF: Yeah.
MM: You mean which people at Dumbarton Oaks?
ABF: Yeah.
MM: Well, it was only for a month. It would have been nice to do it for longer, but I don't know. Everybody was away for vacation. We just saw a lot of our friends in Washington – family et cetera – and it was wonderful to have a base, a library, and all this kind of stuff, but a month is pretty short. I mean we obviously saw Sue Boyd and I don't know who else was around, but –
ABF: Okay. And then you were – because you gave – 1993–94 you did the Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium. This is the Walters one. And then '98 to '99 you were back, weren't you?
MM: Sorry?
ABF: You were back in '98, around 1999 and you gave a talk on "What the Butler Saw." Is this – has this been –?
MM: That was connected –
ABF: Syria.
MM: Syria – did I? Oh maybe I – yeah, I gave a little informal talk or something. But no, I didn't. That was – well, that's a reference to Howard Crosby Butler of Princeton, who went to the site where I was working by then. But I don't remember actually talking about it at Dumbarton Oaks. I actually thought it would be nice, since they funded three seasons of fieldwork, but – I mean contributed to three seasons of fieldwork. But I don't remember that. I remember being back because they had a symposium, which coincided with Cyril's seventieth birthday, I think, and it was on Constantinople.
[Pause to change tape]
ABF: Alright, we're back. Finally, so were you involved again with Dumbarton Oaks with the project in 2000, the excavations at Androna?
MM: Yeah, well this was the field project, because they funded three seasons – I mean, they weren't entire seasons, but I felt that the fund –
CM: They made a contribution.
MM: They made a contribution, yes. But as I was saying earlier – you said that you would be interested in hearing about the fieldwork program?
ABF: Yes.
MM: Yes. Well I feel – I came close to saying so in a lecture once, just a general lecture about general fieldwork funding nowadays and I'm about – I've been asked to do another talk on the subject in several months' time – that the amount that they offer is very unrealistic in terms of making a difference to Byzantine archaeology and that there is a feeling in some funding bodies that, "Oh, it's a Byzantine project. Well, you should go to Dumbarton Oaks; we won't bother giving you any money." And then you go to Dumbarton Oaks and the most they can offer you is what is equivalent – well, maximum, I think what I was told is that they would give one project – the maximum they would give is ten thousand dollars, which was then about six thousand pounds, whereas a season of a decently funded thing could be, you know, over twenty thousand pounds, you see, so it just didn't seem to make a difference. It made a difference but not enough for any kind of ambitious project. Nothing we were doing was that ambitious, but it was excavation, not just survey. So in other words, I think this is quite different from the past, when they were willing to fund things very generously. An important project was when Cyril was director of fieldwork, which was the excavations at Sarachane in Istanbul, which remains kind of a landmark excavation in many ways.
ABF: Was that in the '50s?
MM: No, no, no that was in the late '60s.
ABF: Oh late '60s, okay.
MM: Late '60s, and it was the Church of St. Polyeuktos, which has really great stratigraphic excavation in Istanbul, and it has the best sequence probably to be studied – plus it's a fantastically important building, second only to St. Sophia, so anyway that was really worth doing. But, you know, that couldn't happen today according to the way fieldwork funding is set up now.
ABF: Why do you think it changed?
MM: Who wants to – it's clear just from casual remarks that no one wants to spend the money. And I don't think that there's – frankly – I don't know that archaeology is viewed as that important an element in Byzantine studies compared to other things, so that if you have, as there is now, a program to translate texts, everything's excellent, but it's not expensive the way fieldwork is. But I think you're very limited if you don't have evidence from excavation, and I think particularly for the medieval period this is very true. And I think the earlier period benefits from being tacked on to Roman archaeology, so that a site continues – you know, they can't just avoid digging up late Roman stuff. You know, in a way, one can really live off that, whereas to go and confront a site that's really definitely going to be medieval, this is a different matter.
ABF: That brings up sort of an interesting question of – where do you position Byzantine archaeology in any case.
MM: Well, in the Byzantine subject itself, here we think about how it's regarded and how it's pigeon-holed, et cetera, and there is – and has been for a long time – a tendency to maybe split it between two parts, you know: Late Roman, Late Antique, maybe Early Byzantine, Early Christian – whatever you want to call it – and then Byzantine, which is kind of medieval. And I think that's unfortunate to a very great degree. And I think particularly with material culture it makes a difference, because it's the same site and so: why separate them? And why say, "We're only going to be concerned with things up to the year 600, 700, or something?" And you have a lot to learn about the medieval period from the earlier period and vice versa. But I don't think it's entirely along the classicists' side that the mistake is made, because I think the same occurs on the medieval side. And I know two examples. One was Kazhdan's Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, where he felt that people could go to Pauly-Wissowa for what they wanted in the early period. You know, he didn't exclude it, but he just felt you didn't have to go into the same detail, and that it was really more the medieval part that should be the main concern – don't you think this is true?
CM: Yes.
MM: This is not exaggerating. I had a number of little disputes with him about a few things, in particular. And also the Economic History of Byzantium, which has appeared somewhat recently, which I've just recently gone into print saying it's unfortunate it really starts after, well, seventh century and later and doesn't take the same detailed account of the early period. And I think because economy is so reliant to a great degree on material culture that there you're just losing out on a lot of things that you could make use of in the early period. But I think it's not just a question of anthropology – a lot of people are programmed that way, that they're really interested – they don't see how the late Roman period is relevant, and I think that's a huge mistake. And of course if you look at a city like Constantinople, you've got to take account of the two things in a very linked way.
ABF: Yeah, of course.
MM: Is that what you –?
ABF: Yeah. So, how do you see the role of Dumbarton Oaks in Byzantine studies?
MM: Are you asking him, or...?
ABF: Both of you.
MM: Well, [to CM] you have more –
CM: Well, you know, it's a question of what you want to do. With the present set-up it does serve a useful purpose, you know. People go there for a while and they benefit from this and you can defend this model, which you have now. On the other hand, I think that given the size of the endowment and assuming that most of it will not be flitted away in administration, that you can, with this money, do more and that you must go back to the earlier model of having a small group of people, sitting there and doing research. Now, you have to be, of course, very careful in your choice of people. It can be disastrous if you get the wrong sort of people.
MM: Well, you have the institute at Princeton that operates this way.
CM: Yes. It's much bigger –
MM: Oh, I know. But just the principle of having very advanced people doing very advanced research – I don't see why you need more justification. But you could also do what is becoming increasingly the case here – is to have funded projects, where – now, because everyone's in so much economic trouble here; I mean, universities are just very strangely organized here in terms of money and they expect everything to come from the state and then the state tries to impose a lot of conditions on them, et cetera – but now, they're trying to get for graduate students to have projects funded, projects on specific subjects, and then get the graduate students' fees paid for by the funding for the project, and having them do research on the project and, you know, then you have a few academics, who maybe take some time off from their teaching or whatever, so that maybe if Dumbarton Oaks hosted a few projects – maybe two a year over a period of two or three years – with very set goals of what the purpose of the project was, you know, so a publication coming out at the end and maybe some conferences along the way, then maybe this is something that could produce, make, reinvigorate the place in terms of having a permanent sort of sense of engagement, group engagement.
CM: But you've got to have somebody there.
MM: Well, yes. But, obviously you would have people there, but you could also invite in some people with some very focused projects to work on. You know, they would submit proposals, so you'd find out who was going to come in to do them. And the permanent people who were there, just a relatively small group, could do as they do today, when you apply to do things there, to get funding. But then when they get funding, they often do things sometimes completely different. But I thought here might be a way of actually doing the work right, you know, at the place, at Dumbarton Oaks.
ABF: It sounds like you're advocating for the older model of having professorships.
MM: Yeah, he's saying that and I'm saying yes, but you could also supplement it a bit by having visiting projects come for – you know, here people can get funding to pay for their teaching so they can take time off and come to work on a project – so that you could have maybe something that runs two to three years or something that is focused like that, where they could leave their university and come and stay at Dumbarton Oaks together with the small team of people and work on whatever it is.
ABF: Kind of a hybrid model.
MM: Yeah, a hybrid model. I was just thinking that instead of just individual people doing their own research, you could also have some little projects.
CM: I suppose that with information technology that it changes a lot of things.
MM: Yeah, I think that you could do a lot. It could be something linked to archaeology, maybe fieldwork somewhere else – I mean everybody comes together in a small group of people and while they're doing it they could give lectures and stuff so everyone could hear what was going on. I mean here they've just started a very interesting project on antique statuary. And it's a person – Bert Smith – who's doing – excavating Aphrodisias and all of their fabulous marble sculpture, which goes into late antiquity, and so he's teamed up with Bryan Ward Perkins, a medievalist – sort of western medievalist. But they're looking at – but, he has a lot of experience at Rome – where they're looking at what subjects, where were statues still set up in late antiquity, and how they were recycled and the history of the whole thing. But they're taking it from so many points of view; it's really fascinating. And they funded a couple of studentships to work on the subject together with them. And, I mean, something like that, which is very focused and it's not huge but it's got two major people doing it. I mean don't you think this sounds like the sort of – the kind of very limited goals and limited time scale. And then people – they're going to give us lectures all the time. They've already given a couple of them here so we can hear what's going on. And, you know, I think that's the kind of thing that Dumbarton Oaks could do very easily, don't you think?
CM: Why not?
ABF: So is there anything else you'd like to touch on that I haven't asked you about or that hasn't come up in the course of our conversation?
CM: No, I think we're good.
MM: Such a big subject, it's hard.
ABF: Yeah. You can also email me. I think somebody's also going to come and talk to you about your memoirs – somebody wrote to me about – I don't know –
CM: They don't exist.
MM: Oh you mean – this is Cyril's – this is Claudia Rapp, maybe?
ABF: Yeah.
MM: If that's what you're referring to.
ABF: I think so. I'm not – so this isn't the only record, but – if you can also just write something and email it to me.
MM: Okay. I think if they come and talk to him about his entire, very long career, and in particular all the stuff that went on here and everything, other things might –
ABF: Yeah, about Dumbarton Oaks.
MM: – might surface, yeah.
CM: Okay.
ABF: Okay.]]>
GV: My name is Günder Varinlioğlu. The date is May 19, 2011. I have the pleasure of interviewing Ercüment Atabay, a former professor in the Department of Western Languages and Civilizations at Bogazici University. This work of oral history is a joınt project between the two departments of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, located in Washington D.C.: namely, the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives and the Dumbarton Oaks Archives. Before we begin, do I have your permission to record this interview?
EA: With certain reservations, yes, you do.
GV: Alright. Could you tell us your name for the record?
EA: Mehmet Ercüment Atabay.
GV: Thank you. Where and when were you born?
EA: I was born in Besiktas in 1338 of the old style and 1922 of the new style. July 25, that is.
GV: Where were your parents from? And what were their professions?
EA: My mother was a house wife, and my father was a merchant.
GV: Were they from Istanbul, too?
EA: My father is from Crimea and my mother is from Istanbul.
GV: Do you have any siblings?
EA: No, I'm the only child.
GV: Alright. Are you married? And do you have children?
EA: I'm married and I have three children: An elder daughter, a son and a younger daughter.
GV: What are their professions?
EA: This is a difficult one. My elder daughter is a Professor of English, my son is a business man and my younger daughter works for the United Nations.
GV: Can you tell us about your education?
EA: I can. First I went to the English High School for Boys in 1929. That was where I learned how to read and write and the rest. Then I passed the University of London's Matriculation in 1939. For the first semester of 1939, I was a student at Robert College. But, because I had gotten accepted to the Faculty of Literature at Istanbul University, I studied there with Mrs. Halide Edip until 1942. In the year 1942, the British Council gave me a scholarship for the United Kingdom. And so, I went from Turkey to Britain during the war in 1942. The way I went was – first from here to Egypt, then I flew from Egypt to South Africa, and after travelling from South Africa by ship for three months, I finally arrived in the UK. The university that I went to is St. Andrews, currently a famous university. This here is the tie of that university.
GV: Is it?
EA: This – anyway, I arrived there. I graduated from the History Department of St. Andrews in 1945. I returned to Istanbul in '45. I worked as Mrs. Halide Edip's assistant in the Department of English Philology of the Faculty of Literature until 1950–51 and taught classes on English Literature. I finished my Ph.D. in the year 1950 with high honors. I went to Robert College as a professor of humanities at the beginning of the year of 1951. And then, after a while Robert College – I worked there, at Robert College, until 1971, when it was closed, that is when it was renamed "Girls' College." And it was transformed into – it reopened under the name of Bogazici University. I continued teaching there. It was in 1982, I think, when I retired. This means that the total of the number of years I taught at Robert College and Bogazici amounts, more or less, to fifty.
GV: Did you do your Ph.D. with Halide Edip Adivar?
EA: Yes, I did my Ph.D. with Mrs. Halide Edip.
GV: What was the topic?
EA: The topic was "Classicism in Edmund Spenser's Work" –Edmund Spenser, the poet, of course.
GV: What courses did you teach at Bogazici University?
EA: Many –
GV: So many?
EA: I taught 26 different courses. And so let's not get into that.
GV: Let's not get into it – alright.
EA: Suffice it to say I taught courses on English Literature and European History, if you will.
GV: Alright. Let's get into Byzantium. When did you start to get interested in Byzantium?
EA: I have no personal interest in Byzantium. Mine is more – I'm interested in archaeology. I met Mr. Paul Underwood. Well, it indeed happened more like this: It was in 1947, I think. No, either in '47 or '48. There was this Professor Muller, H. J Muller. Van Nice was working in Hagia Sophia. Together with Muller, I tried recording the masons' marks there in order to help Van Nice. It was a long time – for fun, you know. During that time I was seeing Mr. Whittemore coming and going. I don't personally know Whittemore. Whittemore was such a, well, mysterious person. He would come and he would go. Nobody knew from where he collected the money. He would show up, just like that, for a while, and would not talk. He would wander around Hagia Sophia with his hat on, would sometimes chat with us, and leave. And so thereafter, as a result of our work together, Van Nice recommended me to Paul Underwood, telling him that I was his friend. When, later, Paul Underwood came here, we became friends. We were friends for a long time. After 1955 – anyhow, after Whittemore died, the Byzantine Institute, which had been a private institution to begin with, disappeared all of a sudden. Its name persisted for a while. Its works were taken over by Dumbarton Oaks. And then Underwood requested me to help him in '55, and I accepted it. From then on, until, well, until his death, I did certain jobs for him while he was a field director here. I tried acquiring the necessary permissions from the government, and, together with this, this guy, I took care of relations in Hagia Sophia, etc.
GV: So, how did you meet Van Nice?
EA: Van Nice – well, he was doing these things at Hagia Sophia. He was friends with this Mr. Muller. I met him through Professor Muller.
GV: Yes, we know about that project. How did you meet Muller, then? I mean, how did you get involved in this project?
EA: How did I meet Muller? Muller was – well, H. J. Muller was a visiting professor at the Faculty of Literature, where I was an assistant. That is how we met.
GV: Because of your interest in archaeology?
EA: No, no, not at all. I'm only curious because I am a historian; that's why.
GV: And so, this "masons' marks" was –
EA: No, we did it together for fun!
GV: Yes, I think you have recorded fifteen hundred masons' marks.
EA: Yes, well, more or less. It is written there, isn't it?
GV: Yes, it is. I saw it written in a correspondence. So, you never spoke with Whittemore? Only –
EA: We were only introduced once. I do not know much about Whittemore. He had a friend here, living somewhere on the Bosphorus. I cannot recall his name at all right now.
GV: I can tell you: Archibald Walker.
EA: Yes, Walker, that's it! He used to stay at his place. They used to be very good friends. I mean, Walker used to like Whittemore a lot. Walker used to praise his knowledge of English Literature highly. Walker and I – I only saw him a couple of times on occasion; he wasn't someone I knew. Also, he had an apartment on the Bosphorus and he used to help out Whittemore in certain things. He used to stay with him.
GV: Did Walker use to visit frequent –
EA: No, no, no, no, no. He was just a friend of Whittemore's.
GV: Yes, but you do know about his staying at his apartment.
EA: Sure, he used to stay at his apartment.
GV: Yes. So, did you have relations with anybody else working at the Byzantine Institute?
EA: Yes, I did. Byzantine Institute, wait, where? Here?
GV: Here.
EA: Its head, if you will, was Ernest Hawkins. Ernest Hawkins – he later on continued at Dumbarton Oaks. He was a sort of, a very learned, very knowing man. And so, he used to take care of all the business with the workers, etc. He would always help with projects like the uncovering of the mosaics. Also, Paul Underwood – well, not much. He used to visit frequently. And Larry Majewski! Lawrence Majewski. He took on the project as the field director or the assistant field director. One person who worked with him was Mr. Carroll Wales. He worked on the frescoes. Four, five, or six workers, most of whom were Greek, worked on cleaning the mosaics and, well, uncovering the frescoes.
GV: It seems there weren't many Turkish workers, were there?
EA: There were Turkish workers and Greek workers. Turkish workers would be hired more for – well, as masons.
GV: But it was predominantly Greeks who worked –
EA: Well, they were more – well, it was more or less equal – more or less. There was no specific discrimination, anyway.
GV: Were there any Russians?
EA: No, none.
GV: No Russians. How about any other nationality that you remember?
EA: No, there was nobody.
GV: Were the ones that you call Greek from Istanbul?
EA: Yes, yes, from Istanbul.
GV: They didn't come from abroad?
EA: No, no, they were from Istanbul. Let me try to remember something here – an American lady, who was visiting, told me how she had always wanted to see – Americans tend to be naïve like that – a Byzantine mason. I told her that if she really wanted to see one that much, I could show her one. She told me she would be grateful. "Well then," I said, "Yusuf come over here." There was this Yusuf. I told her, "Here! A Byzantine mason was just like this one." She did not get the joke but – anyway, so it was.
GV: I will not ask who Yusuf was. I presume, he was one of those who worked there.
EA: One of those who worked there.
GV: Now, to continue with my questions concerning the Byzantine Institute: Do you know about Foto Iskender?
EA: Yes, my dear, I do. There used to be some – Sebah Joaillier, and it is their – at the turn of the century – well, it is the most famous photographer here, this Sebah Joaillier. So, much that they had also taken our school pictures at the time and everything. Photography, then, used to be –
GV: You mean when you were in Robert College?
EA: No, this was at the English High School.
GV: English High School.
EA: They were taken when I was there. That's not important. They were the ones who took them. He did not do anything with anyone anymore after the cameras were brought. I mean, Majewski would take the photographs and we would print them, ourselves, at the apartment in, in Cihangir.
GV: I asked, because in our records it is written that all of the photographs of the Byzantine Institute were taken by Foto Iskender.
EA: It may well be the case.
GV: Could it?
EA: Yes, because they were the one during the time of the Byzantine Institute. It was after Dumbarton Oaks took over that they were let go. Only then did we start to take photographs ourselves. I could not, but Majewski took photographs.
GV: Yes. This one will be a bit of a side question but, do you know anyone by the name of Nicholas Victor Artamonoff?
EA: By the name of what?
GV: Artamonoff.
EA: No.
GV: Nicholas Artamonoff.
EA: I don't know him.
GV: You don't know him. You were a student of Sven Larsen. Have you ever – because Sven Larsen was also very interested in Byzantium, in archaeology.
EA: Well, Larsen. The year 1939 – Mr. Larsen was my mathematics teacher during the first semester of the '39–'40 academic year, when I was a student at Robert College. I don't know how interested he was. I only have this one memory of him: One day I was at the Hagia Sofia Mosque, where I used to go pretty frequently, anyway. He came up and I remember him shouting: "This wonderful space!"
GV: You have already mentioned him but, how did you meet Underwood? Did Van Nice –
EA: Through Van Nice. He gave him my name when he was coming here. We met. We came home. We were friends for a long time. I started helping them out with work after '55, anyhow.
GV: Do you have any other, more personal, memories of Underwood that you would like to share? What was the nature of your friendship? How was Underwood's personality?
EA: He was, really, very nice! How shall I say? It is difficult to answer such kind of questions. He was a little timid – I don't know. He was a very loving person. He did not have much to tell. He trusted me. Together, we – so, I was helping him. In certain respects, he was a bit too – for example, he would let things out. Like, for example, when he would be talking to the Director of the Hagia Sophia Museum, and I would be translating, for example, and even when the Director would prefer to not hear something, he would keep on telling it. I would then work on saving the situation, etc. We quite often had anecdotes like that.
GV: Was this with Muzaffer Ramazanoglu?
EA: No, dear, not with Ramazanoglu. This is before Ramazanoglu, with Feridun Dirimtekin.
GV: Now, I think you were playing a major role in the bureaucratic procedures during the abandonment of this Byzantine Institute and its transformation into Dumbarton Oaks. There is a correspondence where you tell Paul Underwood not to change the name Byzantine Institute. You advise them that, even if they do change the name, they should at least keep the term "Byzantine" in the new institutional title. You tell them that it should be so because the Byzantine Institute had managed to establish a good place, a good reputation in Turkey; should there be such a transformation, the new institution should sustain ties with the Byzantine Institute.
EA: Yes, exactly. That is correct – because the other one was Ataturk. Mr. Whittemore had talked to Ataturk. There is a document by Ataturk that states the mosaics to be uncovered. This document was lost by Dumbarton Oaks.
GV: I was about to ask that –
EA: That, that –
GV: We never saw this document.
EA: It must have lost it. This is a fundamental mistake. And then, later, approximately – well, I do not remember its date, and I never cut it out to keep it. But this Turkish – Ataturk Foundation would issue a different calendar each year with different photographs from Ataturk's life. I think it was ten years from now, that they included a photograph talking to Whittemore. It was a large photograph. Not many people knew it. It was, of course, only me who understood who that was.
GV: Yes, so there was a single document. And that was probably given to Whittemore and then got lost –
EA: That must have been lost.
GV: Yes. So, as you have already mentioned, your affiliation with Dumbarton Oaks started in 1955.
EA: Approximately.
GV: Approximately…It seems to have intensified in the '60s.
EA: Well, it continued, like that, until – until Underwood died. After him Cyril Mango became the, well, the field director. Lawrence Majewski was responsible for the field direction here. Later he left to teach at New York University. It all started to bog down slowly thereafter coinciding with the time of Cyril Mango. The name remained for a while. The closing down of the apartment in Cihangir, I think, was in 1974. The director of Dumbarton Oaks around that time was Bill Tyler. It was Bill Tyler. His son – well, his daughter and son-in-law were working here at the consulate. The name – it'll come to me now. At any rate, I packed away the furniture in the apartment in Cihangir. There was a library there. We had bought this library from the renowned, well, the renowned Byzantine scholar Mambouri many years ago during the time of Underwood. I think it was bought for something like two thousand dollars at the time. This library had been set up in the apartment in Cihangir. Some of the books there – Dumbarton Oaks wanted some of them, which we then sent. The remaining ones were donated to ARIT, the American Research Institute here.
GV: Yes. How about – you have done many things for Dumbarton Oaks, but how about your actual responsibilities.
EA: Honestly, my responsibility was utterly ambiguous, meaning subjective. Whenever there was like – for example, if there was need for a new tire, and at the time it was a bit – well, I would go to the distributor, talk to them about it, and get the tire. I mean, I had such kinds of responsibilities, as well. Or, for example, there would be a need for permission from the Directorate of Museums, and I would help the correspondence therewith. So, such kinds of things.
GV: But there is no written contract or document defining your responsibilities?
EA: No, no, no, no, no, entirely subjective. I mean with – I was only helping Paul. That's all.
GV: So, always through Paul Underwood?
EA: I was helping Paul Underwood. We would also go when he was not here. I would go to Kariye Mosque and would relate the necessary instructions to the masons, etc. Paul Underwood would stay here for very short periods, and so I was spending more time with Majewski.
GV: Meaning, you were not responsible to a specific person? It was more of a friendship?
EA: Yes, okay, that is it.
GV: So, there was no official contract?
EA: No, no, no, there was no such thing.
GV: I read another correspondence between you and Paul Underwood in 1962, whereby you write: "I am not concerned by your calling me "the secretary." "But so far," you state, "…I have always helped Dumbarton Oaks in a subjective manner until now." You wrote that in '62, and two years later, in 1964, there still isn't a trace of this official title of yours. And yet, you also tell Underwood that he had better avoid referring to you as 'secretary' or 'translator' in his official correspondence with Turkish authorities, since that may create certain problems.
EA: That is correct.
GV: Well, why is that? Can you, please, explain?
EA: No, well, I did not have any official – I actually don't really remember the circumstances then. That was long, I don't know, about fifty years, ago.
GV: Yes. But, I mean, how did the Turkish authorities recognize you?
EA: The Turkish authorities? Well, I was friends with the director of Hagia Sofia, anyway, and work was completely on Hagia Sophia. Both Kariye and Fethiye were connected to Hagia Sophia. And even though Fenari Isa was itself not connected, the excavation there, too, was connected to it. And I – I was friends with Mr. Feridun. In cases of need for correspondence I would be the one to get through to him.
GV: Yes. So, for the Turkish authorities you were only a help.
EA: They would not even know my name.
GV: Interesting.
EA: No, I mean there was no – we didn't have much to do with Turkish authorities at any rate.
GV: So, only when acquiring permission.
EA: Permission – well, the permission had been granted to begin with, and was still valid. And there was no other.
GV: How about your friendship with Feridun Dirimtekin? I mean –
EA: He was the director of Hagia Sophia. We met there. We became friends.
GV: Yes. Alright then, we will talk a little bit about money now. You seem to have been responsible for the management of Dumbarton Oaks's funds, as well. As far as I understand, this money couldn't be transferred to an account under your name. Instead, it was brought to you by Hawkins or another person who would be coming here at the beginning of the season.
EA: Now, here is how it was: The Greek workers were paid in the winter, as well. Because the rest were day-laborers, their work would be terminated by the winter. They would leave the bulk sum of their salaries to me. I would distribute the salaries at the beginning of each month. That was all there was to it.
GV: Why were they transferring the money to your account, but coming to you, as such, with cash? Is there –
EA: No. At the time there was a strange – I don't comprehend the way they dealt with money.
GV: I mean, is the way they would bring such a bulk of money to you about transfer –
EA: Like – that's – nothing difficult. It's a simple matter. A certain amount of money would be – well, a "gratuitous bailee" – that is how they call that, you know. They would leave it. I would then make the monthly payments from this sum. This is all.
GV: Why were the Greeks paid in the winter while the Turks were day-laborers?
EA: Well, they were – Turks. There was no such discrimination. The others – they were artists. They were hired for a year. They would clean mosaics, etc. The others were laborers. That is to say they would lift masonry, and such – whatever there would be. It wasn't because of some discrimination between Turks and Greeks. Some were artists, others were not.
GV: So, Dumbarton Oaks would pay a pension then? A retirement and –
EA: No, no retirement or anything. Everyone's tax was paid. I mean, there was nothing – well, nothing unlawful would be carried out. There was this Mr. Emcet, who was a lawyer, and he would do their – the records of all of them were held at the Eminonu Taxation Office. Their employment history would be recorded in these official cards. So it was –
GV: While you are at it can you mention more about Mr. Emcet?
EA: Emcet Agis.
GV: Emcet Agis.
EA: Lawyer.
GV: But, apparently, also this – Archibald Walker was Socony-Vacuum Oil's –
EA: He was the former director of it.
GV: Yes, and Mr. Emcet, their lawyer –
EA: He was the lawyer of Socony. That was how they met each other to begin with. They must have met so.
GV: So, must they have met through Walker?
EA: I do not know, dear, I do not know.
GV: You do not know this. Yes, alright then, let's get into this apartment in Cihangir called Yildiz. Did you rent this? Did you see about this apartment? Was it you who found it?
EA: Honestly, let me tell you this: When Paul Underwood first came here, we rented, from a friend, this apartment right across here. This one right here. They were friends of ours.
GV: Right here?
EA: Right over here.
GV: On Husrevgerede?
EA: Yeah, over here. Anyway – but then around that time there was a – a sad situation. Let's leave that. Let's leave the private life aside. After then there – I'll tell you about it off-the-record. Anyway, they found the apartment in Cihangir. Paul Underwood found it. I don't know how he found it. I had nothing to do with that.
GV: But you were – well, you prepared it for the visitors, members of the team or, at any rate, for –
EA: I mean, the apartment – I would have the key when they would not be here. For example, Striker would come and stay there. And he would stay, and then leave, and then if another one of them – he would come and stay. There was, well, David Oates. Professor David Oates stayed. George Forsyth stayed, too.
GV: And what did Saban Kolat do?
EA: Saban? Well now, Saban is a mystery. Saban, you see, was the "all around man." He was there at the time of Whittemore, as well. He was Hawkins's man. It is not possible to explain what he – well, what Saban was doing. He was – well, he was our connection man. One would give him the money and have him get things, or ask him to fetch a specific artisan. He was a man like that. Exactly like that. It would be a lie if I said his job there was clear-cut.
GV: What was he doing exactly? What are certain things in your mind?
EA: It really is very difficult! I don't know – say, he would find the artisans and the foremen, or he would send out payments and things – and things like that.
GV: Would he work as a laborer, too?
EA: No, no, no. Saban would be wearing a tie with his shirt, he was no laborer.
GV: He was not a laborer, but he was also not an educated –
EA: He was a – a trusted friend, if you will.
GV: He was so, but didn't have a profession?
EA: No, no, he didn't have a profession.
GV: Yes.
EA: He was a corsair during World War Two – One – Two.
GV: World War Two?
EA: [Laughs]
GV: Yes. Saban Kolat, isn't it?
EA: Kolat, that's right.
GV: Kolat is his last name. You are saying that it was Whittemore who found him?
EA: He was Whittemore's man to begin with. He later stayed on.
GV: When did he pass away?
EA: I don't remember.
GV: You do not remember. You mentioned an apartment near here. Was it this – I came across, in the documents, a place called Pansiyon Villa Rest on Kalipci Street at Apartment 104 – Hawkins and Cyril Mango had stayed there. It says that –
EA: I do not know this one.
GV: You don't know this one. Alright. Providing the journals and books from here was among the duties that you fulfilled for Dumbarton Oaks, I think. I've come across one entitled "Belle –"
EA: Belleten! I don't know what happened to it.
GV: And so, were you finding –
EA: I just was at booksellers – I would purchase books for libraries. I would –
GV: For the one in Deniz Apartment or for the one at Dumbarton Oaks?
EA: For the one here. I was buying them here. Dumbarton Oaks, later on took some books and they – we had bought, this, Mambouri's library as a whole. And then later with Paul Underwood – you have heard the name Mambouri, haven't you?
GV: Of course I have.
EA: We bought it and put it there. Actually when the library was dismantled I took most of those custom-made shelves there. The salvaged shelves are here at home. After that Dumbarton Oaks asked for some of those books. I mailed them to them. The ones that were left – well, Robert College wanted some, and they were donated to Robert College. And well, the rest – No, they were not! Robert College bought those! The college paid the money to, well, Dumbarton Oaks. The rest – I the rest were reference books. And so – was it the year of '74? – I think it was '74, when we were moving out of the apartment. Thereafter, I – Loerke was working there at the time as – as the field – well, director of studies. W. C. Loerke. Thereafter, I met with – I knew him very little. He was not a very nice person, anyway. Did you know him?
GV: I did not.
EA: That's good. You didn't miss much. Don't put this in, it's off the record.
GV: [Laughs] Alright.
EA: After that they told me to give them to ARIT, to the American Research Institute. So I gave all the books to – well, to the director there, who was Lowry, Heath Lowry. The one who is currently working at Princeton University as – well, he is a professor. He used to be the director of that. I gave all of those books to them. I took them there.
GV: Yes. Were you, perhaps, living on Akaretler at some point?
EA: Me? No! I am still living where I was born, my child. I live approximately – I was born ten meters below here.
GV: Yes. Were you organizing parties or dinners here for the Dumbarton Oaks affiliates?
EA: No, my friends would come over for dinner.
GV: So, normal – nothing special. I will now go back to the year of 1956. Again, in a document I read you write to Underwood, "I want to use equipment belonging to Dumbarton Oaks in Hagia Sofia and Kariye." You ask for permission to do so. Was that for your own research? Given that you asked for Underwood's permission, it must have been for a project unrelated to Dumbarton Oaks.
EA: Honestly, you are right. But I really don't remember.
GV: We have already talked a little bit about this, but, so Underwood consults you about both field work and plans for future projects. And you were also – you would visit certain sites in the winter and write your impressions of the works of Turkish specialists to Underwood. Have you ever – were you ever present at works undertaken by Dumbarton Oaks in Kariye or Fenari Isa? I mean, did you work there or would you just be visiting?
EA: No, I would work there. I was going every day. I was going in the day time and, you know, checking things. But, I mean, of course, I was not actually doing anything. I would talk to the workers if need be and whatever. It was like that. I was Underwood's – when he was away we were with Majewski, who doesn't speak Turkish.
GV: Did Underwood speak Turkish?
EA: No.
GV: Hawkins?
EA: Hawkins? Well, he knew some nonsensical things. He was a little – put colloquially, he was a little out of it. I mean –
GV: His mind?
EA: But he knew his job well. He was good. In that respect he had a bit of an inferiority complex, thinking, well, that he didn't have a degree. And yet he would outdo many degree-holders in his knowledge.
GV: Yes, but, it seems Turkish people liked Hawkins very much.
EA: They did. So they did – Ernest Hawkins.
GV: Apparently you had also conducted photographic recording projects.
EA: What, dear?
GV: The project of photographing.
Atabey: Honestly I – I would help him – I was not photographing.
GV: But it seems you were organizing their production?
EA: They were taking them themselves. Majewski used to take all the photographs.
GV: Alright. Have you ever come across Yani Makridis?
EA: Yani Makridis? Well, now – his name would be written there.
GV: Yes.
EA: He was working mainly on the frescoes as an assistant to Carroll Wales. Later on, Carroll Wales left here and went to Boston. He opened a studio there – for restoration work. And his, well, his Greek friend – his name was not Yani, though. Help me out here. It was –
GV: Koco?
EA: Koco! Koco. Koco was his name. He –
GV: Is Koco another person?
EA: There were two Kocos. This one was – he was Carroll Wales's friend. And he used to do – cleaning frescoes. Later on they left for Boston together. He helped him in a studio. Later on – after a while he died of cancer.
GV: Do you know Koco's last name?
EA: I can't recall right now.
GV: Who was the other Koco, then?
EA: He used to work on – well, on mosaics.
GV: Do you mean he was cleaning them?
EA: Cleaning mosaics.
GV: So Yani Makridis is –
EA: Yani is someone else. He was like that, too. He was also mosaic – they would do mosaic and fresco cleaning.
GV: He was not a photographer, then?
EA: No, no, he was not a photographer. Larry Majewski would take all the photographs.
GV: We saw his name in the context of a photography project and wondered if he did photographing –
EA: No, dear, he was not. He did not take photographs.
GV: Yes. So, you were also doing, well, you were taking the foreign visitors and –
EA: The visitors – I would greet – well, like a protocol. When an important person would come – I met Igor Stravinsky. It was me who showed Katherine Hepburn around. It was me who showed Bernstein around. It was me who showed Adenauer around – I mean Chancellor Adenaur – together with Adnan Menderes, I did his – I mean everyone would go there. I even made a list of people that I'd met.
GV: You have a list of that here at home?
EA: It is here. Now – of the ones I remember.
GV: Is there anything that you would like to tell us about them? – any anecdotes?
EA: There's this one, where Adenauer asked me, "What do you do?" I said that I was, well, I said I was a professor. He responded, "How I wish that I, too, stayed that way." This is all.
GV: Yes. Well, you were helping Dumbarton Oaks to get work permits.
EA: My child, this business of getting permissions of Turkish authorities is a sensitive issue. Let me tell you one: Ševčenko is a little obstinate. He likes himself a lot. He came here – I mean several times. He even told me once, while we were walking on the street, "I am headless." And I told him, "You do have a head, it is just that it does not work." He could not say a word. Anyway – he wanted to get this one permission. He said that he had written to the museum in Ankara and got a response the following day. "See," he said, "This is a record!" "What was the response?" I asked. "No!" Well, now – [Laughs]. He resumed silence. They wrote such nonsense that Ankara, without giving it much thought, sent away the rejection – there are three ways of acquiring, or well, getting a response from Turkish authorities. You write to them: In one kind of case they say "yes", that is fine. Another one is that they say "no," and that is fine, too. Yet another one comes about when they don't respond. When they don't respond, one shouldn't push it. If you push it, it resolves into a "no." And if you wait it resolves into a "yes." This – well, I was the only person actually doing this. These Americans tend to be a bit tactless. They, themselves – poor Paul was like that, too, and that was why he used to trust me in these matters.
GV: Would you travel to Ankara?
EA: No, no, no, no, not at all! – only from here by mail.
GV: By mail.
EA: No, no – not so – no such thing.
GV: Were you translating the documents, as well? Because the permissions were likely to have been written in Turkish.
EA: It was no big deal. A document would be written in Turkish, signed, and posted. Not much of a – we did not have much to do. The permission had already been granted and it went on being valid.
GV: Yes. I have a question about the Kariye Mosque project, now.
EA: Go ahead, dear.
GV: Now – Dumbarton Oaks was having made the canvas replicas of these frescoes –
EA: They made a replica of it.
GV: A replica.
EA: Carroll Wales made it. One of them – it was sent to Dumbarton Oaks. The one that went there, by the way is of, well, when Jesus went down to Hell, and, well, the one with him resurrecting Mary and Adam. They asked for permission to send it abroad. The permission for this was my – the dean of the Academy of Fine Arts was a friend of mine. I went there, got it signed, took it, and we sent it away.
GV: Carroll Wales did not do it himself, it seems.
EA: Carroll Wales – he made the replica.
GV: So he made it? There was also mention of Charles Compton.
EA: Ah, yes, sorry! Compton made it. It was Compton who made it. Carroll Wales did the cleaning – Compton made it. That is correct, I am sorry.
GV: Alright. Then there is this issue of – to our knowledge it was made in the 1950s. But it only reaches Dumbarton Oaks, much later, in 1963.
EA: It wasn't until the '60s?
GV: Not until the '60s.
EA: The replica was made slowly by Philip Compton. Philip Compton was – he was making these replicas for a long time at the – and then he left to work at the British Museum. Thereafter he went to the Ashmolean Museum as a restorer.
GV: So, where were these replicas kept in the winter? They are quite large and –
EA: What?
GV: These replicas –
EA: Honestly, I think they were at –
GV: – they are said to have remained in Turkey for about a year.
EA: They were not that large. They were stored in the, well, this southwest room, also known as the priests' room. It must be mentioned there.
GV: So, that room was in use?
EA: Yes, it was.
GV: Alright, let's now talk about Turks. I have a question about Semavi Eyice.
EA: Go ahead, dear.
GV: Once again, this is something that I have come across in the correspondences. Coinciding with the correspondence between you and Underwood in 1963, Underwood was planning on working in Fenari Isa Mosque. You tell him that he can see Semavi Eyice, who is a friend of yours, about it. You tell him that he could, well, you tell him that you will let him know of his response. How was your relationship with Semavi Eyice?
EA: Semavi, dear, is a professor at Istanbul University. He is still alive.
GV: I know.
EA: Anyway, he was a friend of mine from Istanbul University – because, well, I knew most of the people who worked at the Archaeological Museum. I would visit frequently since childhood. And so, Semavi was there and also – anyway, it'll come to me now. That is how I knew him.
GV: Was he a close friend of yours?
EA: No, he was not. I visited his apartment a couple of times. I mean, he was not especially a good friend. He had given me his books as presents, and things like that.
GV: But Mr. Semavi had no affiliation to Dumbarton Oaks?
EA: No, he has no affiliation.
GV: Yes, so, I will now get into the projects of Sarachane and Kalenderhane.
EA: Harrison!
GV: Yes. I –
EA: This is what you just got into: Harrison.
GV: Martin Harrison.
EA: Martin Harrison.
GV: And Lee Striker, of course, first in Bodrum Mosque, and later in Kalenderhane. This –
EA: Lee Striker. Do you know Lee Striker?
GV: Lee Striker is my thesis advisor. I did my Ph.D. with Lee Striker.
EA: Okay, then, in that case.
GV: No, no, please, do tell!
EA: If you know him, then there's no need.
GV: Yes, but this will be recorded.
EA: Don't record it.
GV: Why not?
EA: Nothing. It's alright. Don't worry.
GV: [Laughs] I wish I hadn't told you.
EA: No.
GV: How about Martin Harrison?
EA: Martin Harrison, my child, was – I think he was at the University of Manchester, I am not sure. He was doing the excavations at Kalenderhane. No, no, not at Kalenderhane, at Sarachane. He didn't have much to do with, well, with Dumbarton Oaks. And that was all there was. We didn't have much to do with each other. I think I was the one who got their permission. I helped him out, etc. And then he, the poor soul, died.
GV: Yes. But it seems that you had also helped Lee Striker – in Bodrum Mosque.
EA: As well as in Kalenderhane.
GV: So, did you use to visit those sites?
EA: No, no, he would work there by himself. I mean I had helped Lee Striker, sort of, indirectly.
GV: Yes.
EA: He is alive, isn't he?
GV: Yes, he is.
EA: How old is he now?
GV: How old?
EA: He must be in his late seventies.
GV: He is in his late seventiess right now, yes. Yes. So, you helped in the acquisition of the permission for this Sarachane project, as you have mentioned.
EA: Yes I did.
GV: But you were also helping to provide work force and equipment.
EA: No, I did not help out in Sarachane. That, Harrison used to do by himself.
GV: He did himself – but then how about the supplement of the missing photographs, payments? Did you not have anything to do with those?
EA: No. Well, you mean for Sarachane, don't you?
GV: For Sarachane.
EA: No, no.
GV: Nothing to do there, either, then.
EA: And then there is this Zeyrek Mosque. You haven't gotten to that yet.
GV: If you could tell us about it now that you have mentioned it – and that you have said you didn't do much at Sarachane.
EA: No. In Zeyrek Mosque, it was Peter Megaw. His name should be mentioned there.
GV: Yes.
EA: His real name was Arsenal Megaw, but they called him Peter.
GV: Why is that?
EA: I don't know.
GV: Nobody knows.
EA: Peter's real name was Arsenal Megaw. He came here for a year as an assistant to – I do not know for what. It was at the – the floor of Zeyrek Mosque was uncovered. The floor there was this very beautiful – there is a term for it, "opus sectile," or something. They uncovered that floor. Many glass, stained glass, were found there. This stained glass is very important. Peter worked on those there for a long time – because, in that period – apparently, it was thought that stained glass had not yet existed in that period. So, that was something. And then something rather strange happened. It was in the Kariye mosque. George Forsyth came and did an excavation there in the – this excavation revealed the – the reliquary box there. So, the reliquary box was found. It was, like, a lead box. The same excavation also revealed some of this stained class. I am not sure if it was that they couldn't understand the value of these – this stained glass. I kept some eight to ten kinds, or pieces, of that glass because I am a collector. That is, I took them. The rest were all thrown away. They were chucked away like that. And then later on when they found out that this was very important I gave the pieces I had to Peter Megaw. And so, it was revealed in Kariye that stained glass did exist in that period.
GV: Yes. Anything else that you may remember about Zeyrek?
EA: Honestly, there is – there is another thing I remember from Zeyrek! They excavated this large marble thing with a relief, whose shape I don't remember exactly. But through that it was understood to have been taken from Sarachane.
GV: How about works at Fenari Isa, did you ever visit –
EA: I know that one, too. There at the Fenari Isa site – there were not many mosaics uncovered there. Some frescoes were found. There, they did – I mean, it was a functioning mosque, anyway. No such big project was carried out there. Only a few frescoes were revealed. For example, here, let me give you one off-the-record: Now, we were doing certain things without asking permission. Because I was friends with Mr. Feridun. Now, for permission, Mr. Feridun didn't want to know, because if he did he would have to act. He didn't want to know; he condoned. Now, for example, Paul, tactless as usual, would tell him, we are doing these things because you gave permission! Mr. Feridun would turn a blind eye. And so, I would negotiate between the two of them.
GV: Were these happening in Fenari Isa?
EA: This would be happening more generally.
GV: In general.
EA: In general.
GV: Since you know Majewski, did you also help him with the discovery and transportation of this – this well-known fresco? It was a very small project.
EA: I must have. I don't really remember.
GV: Okay, so who else do you remember from that time? How about Cyril Mango?
EA: Cyril Mango was a friend of mine from high school. We were in high school – I graduated from the English High School for Boys here, and so did Cyril Mango. He is a high a school friend of mine. Later on, I went to St. Andrews University and Cyril Mango did so too, after me. Anyway, so – he would visit here. He would come and go and when he would come I would see him, etc. He is younger than me. He is 82 years old, and I am 89.
GV: So you are old friends?
EA: Well, old acquaintances. He is a very good scholar.
GV: Is there anything else that you would like to mention about Cyril Mango?
EA: No, nothing. He was, like, cynical and extremely intelligent. And so – A very good scholar.
GV: You have mentioned Ihor Ševčenko.
EA: Ševčenko. Ševčenko is strange – the way he is.
GV: Yes. And Martin Harrison?
EA: To be honest, he was like, well, a happy school-boy! [Laughs] He was a very nice gentleman. We did not have much of a friendship.
GV: Megaw?
EA: Megaw was a typical "English civil servant." He had worked as the director of a museum in Cyprus at some point. What else – he used to find our work a little strange. He would – "It's rather a strange institution," he would say, and could never figure it out.
GV: How about David Winfield?
EA: David Winfiled. He never worked with us. He had worked mainly in the Sumela Monastery. Anyway – he came here. He is a bit of a bad lot. Well, I mean, I say this off-the-record. There – I will not say any more.
GV: And Robin Cormack? Did you ever run into him?
EA: No, never. I am not sure if he visited here.
GV: He had worked at Hagia Sofia with Hawkins for a short period of time.
EA: That must have been before me.
GV: He was –
EA: I don't know him.
GV: Alright. And you will not say anything about Lee Striker?
EA: No, there's nothing to be said! You know him very well, at any rate.
GV: We were curious about what you might know.
EA: No, that's alright.
GV: Alright.
EA: For example – let's take, for instance, the apartment in Cihangir. I was responsible for its – he would call from there to tell me how it had not been properly cleaned. I mean, he is a bit of a rude one.
GV: Now, about Van Nice – I think you were pretty close. You were communicating with each other very frequently.
EA: Honestly, it was through him that I had gotten involved with Dumbarton Oaks to begin with.
GV: What was he like? What were the things that he –
EA: Well, he was working in Hagia Sophia on the – he was making plans. There is not much to say. He had worked, I think, in Iran, before.
GV: In Isfahan.
EA: In Isfahan. He had worked in Isfahan. He had a friend, who – this friend of ours would always tell him "When you were in Abyssinia…," and he would respond "I was not in Abyssinia, I was in Isfahan." A couple of months would pass by, and then again: "When you were in Abyssinia…" "I was not." He would forget and respond. We were, well, we didn't have much to do with each other. We knew each other. It was because of his friendship with Herbert Muller that we went to do the masons' marks, in the first place.
GV: And so this work of yours – did Muller take it or –
EA: Muller.
GV: – or was it given to Van Nice?
EA: Nobody was given anything. Van Nice was asking for this, I mean, to be done. And Muller was interested – Muller is a historian. I have some eight or nine books of his. We had travelled together in Anatolia and things like that. He is not an archaeologist at all. We were doing that – recording the masons' marks for fun.
GV: No, but this "masons' marks" document is in our archives. I don't think that there are any names written on it. So, apparently, you made it together with Muller.
EA: I made it with Muller.
GV: There is a draft of it there.
EA: We would do this thing with this black material on paper, and the mark would come out.
GV: Yes, so you were doing that. Alright. Did you meet Van Nice's family? Were they –
EA: Yes, I met them. But I can't remember, really.
GV: You don't remember much.
EA: Her name was Betty, wasn't it?
GV: Betty Van Nice.
EA: Betty Van Nice.
GV: But they seem to have stayed here for a while and their children went to Robert College.
EA: That may be right.
GV: You don't remember them. Then, now, quite a number of students from, well, from Robert College seem to have worked at projects of Dumbarton Oaks, especially those of Van Nice. Did you help organize –
EA: No, I never helped with that.
GV: You never helped Van Nice?
EA: No, not that. I knew some of those students; they were my students. I mean, that was a coincidence. It had nothing to with me finding them or anything.
GV: Who are they? – their names.
EA: I don't remember at all.
GV: You don't remember. But, from what we see in the correspondence, you would go and visit the works of Turkish archaeologists. And then you would write your impressions of them to Van Nice. Among these commentaries, the one that attracted my attention the most was Muzaffer Ramazanoglu's work. You didn't –
EA: Well, Ramazanoglu was the director of Hagia Sofia. He was a strange man. He was a very vain and rude man! We didn't have much to do with each other. I tend to avoid conflict with people. We didn't have much in common. And so, he was, at some point – Paul and I would go and we would sit there. Ramazanoglu hadn't started working at Hagia Sophia, yet. He would come by and – strike dully into conversation and leave like that. I mean, I didn't have much to do with him.
GV: Alright.
EA: I knew Mr. Feridun better. Feridun Dirimtekin, that is. Feridun Dirimtekin was a former military officer. And also – I mean, he was a military officer in the old days. But he was interested in things Byzantine. He even published a book entitled "Fortifications of Istanbul."
GV: And so, these visits of yours to excavation sites – from what I can gather you were visiting them regularly over the winter. You were checking what was being done and how these buildings were. Was that a result of your own personal interest?
EA: Well, I mean, like, it was help. I was a full-time professor here in the winter, anyway. I would go and have a look on some Tuesday afternoons, when I would be free.
GV: Alright. I had seen, on a letter that you had written to Underwood, "Ercument Atabay, Pantologist" in the letterhead section.
EA: Pantologist. [Laughs]
GV: What's the story behind that?
EA: Well, I came up with this made-up word, "pantologist," on my own. It means "a person who deals with all things." I came up with that word. I had even had it printed on paper – I got printed this mailing paper that read "Humanistic Studies Research Institute, Ercument Atabay, Pantologist." There are some interesting anecdotes about that. [Laughs] So, this is how it came about.
GV: What are the stories?
EA: I don't mean any story as such. But, for example, we needed this one book by Oxford Press. And they would not give it to us – I mean, sell it. And so I removed this "pantologist." I'll show you.
GV: Sure.
EA: Instead I wrote…I sent it as just "Humanistic Studies Research Institute." And they sent it. They sent the book.
GV: [Laughs] When did you adopt this – this title? When did you declare yourself a "pantologist"?
EA: My child, this was sixty years ago. [Laughs] sixty to seventy.
GV: We were very intrigued by it.
EA: And no one would know what it does there, because I made it up.
GV: [Laughs]
EA: You know there is this word "polymath." "Pantologist" corresponds to that.
GV: Have you ever visited Dumbarton Oaks?
EA: Yes, I have.
GV: Would you tell us about it?
EA: In 1966 –
GV: Yes? Were you invited?
EA: No, dear. Robert College had sent me for a conference. It was at Bennington College. And that was my first time in the United States. That was also when I went to Washington to see Paul. He was – I visited the Dumbarton Oaks building. It was – well, it was Grierson who showed me around the building.
GV: Philip Grierson.
EA: Philip Grierson that is.
GV: Who did you meet while you were there?
EA: I didn't meet anyone.
GV: What were your impressions of Dumbarton Oaks?
EA: Well, Philip Grierson was an English person with a wonderful sense of humor. "Look," he said, "let me show you the most crucial section of this building." And he took me to the boiler room of the building. "Here is something that you cannot find anywhere else," he told me, "you can leave out the rest." Because, really, it was something – like a factory.
GV: Alright, but you had helped Dumbarton Oaks substantially, and yet, they never officially invited you?
EA: No, no, no, what would they do that for? I didn't have anything to – I mean I was not a scholar or anything. My – well, my degree is in medieval history.
GV: Alright. I have a couple of more personal questions. Again related to something that I'd come across in a correspondence, something that involves both Ernest Hawkins and Dumbarton Oaks. It is referred to as "Jan affair."
EA: What affair?
GV: "Jan," as in the proper name, J-A-N. "Jan affair." I think that this person had also worked at the Byzantine Institute. They considered suing Dumbarton Oaks about a particular affair, but then decide not to.
EA: Who is that?
GV: I do not know. I was wondering if you did.
EA: I don't know either.
GV: "Jan affair?"
EA: I don't know, my dear.
GV: You don't remember. Alright, then. Certain minor problems with permission at Hagia Sophia – that is certain minor problems regarding work at Hagia Sophia arise in the year 1965 as a result of the turbulent political situation in Turkey. And in a letter to Underwood you write that the movement to turn Hagia Sohpia into a mosque revived. What are the things that you remember from this period?
EA: I sincerely do not remember.
GV: Alright. You have mentioned ARIT a couple of times.
EA: Who?
GV: ARIT, American Research Institute in Turkey.
GV: It seems that you were quite involved at the time of its establishment. You were even giving advice to Underwood about where precisely ARIT should be set up.
EA: Underwood did not have much to do with ARIT – not with ARIT.
GV: What was your role there?
EA: The director there – they all would know me, anyway. ARIT had, well, it had two directors. One of them was Heath Lowry, and I knew him. And then there was the current director, Tony Greenwood. And his father was a colleague at Robert College. That's all, not much to it.
GV: But during its establishment, too, you –
EA: No, no.
GV: There is not much. Alright. Do you remember Rustem Duyuran?
EA: Very well indeed!
GV: Could you tell us about him, then, because –
EA: Rustem Duyuran. Rustem Duyuran was the director of the Archaeological Museum. He got his education in Germany. To put it colloquially, he was out of it. He was also interested in, well, drinking. This guy would always start up fights and things like that. Between him and Paul, and because Paul was a little tactless, I would be the go-between. I would intentionally call him "big brother Rustem" so that it would be easier to make up with him after a potential fight – because if you call someone your big brother, then you do make peace with him. But otherwise – Rustem – for example, let me tell you a little something: One day at the – there was this Nezih Firatli who was working at the Archaeological Museum. Nezih Firatli. He was a very good archaeologist, and a good friend. He, too, passed away. He would, you know, help us. And then, well, we were to borrow something, I now forget what it was, from the Archaeological Museum. We needed Mr. Rustem's permission. Now, Mr. Rustem would not be there in the mornings. And so, I told Paul to leave his card on his desk, so that we could later claim to not have found him in his office. And that way we could get the "little permission" from Nezih. Then we went back one afternoon when Mr. Rustem was there. What would Paul do but tell him: "We left that card intentionally in order to be able to say that we didn't find you there." The man's face was like – "Big brother," I said, "don't dwell on it, you understand the situation here." And so we resolved it. Paul had such gaffes to make.
GV: But I think that Rustem Duyuran worked in Anatolia.
EA: He did. He was the director of the Archaeological – of the museum in Izmir. He had some – but he was a strange man. At Sarachane, for example, some, well, some marble pieces with monograms were found. I told Mr. Rustem to get some of those. "They don't concern us," he said. Nezih and me, we would take those to the Archaeological Museum at night in order to, well, salvage them. Anyway, so Mr. Rustem was an odd man like that. On the corner there, in Beyazit, there is a bath-house, under which there are reliefs from the Theodosian period. These reliefs are very precious because there are very few of them that date back to the Theodosian period. I went to Mr. Rustem and told him, "Big brother, just give me two men and I will take care of the money. Let's remove these pieces, and take them to the archaeological museum." "Just leave it!" he said – things like that. And then all of those pieces got broken. I had actually taken pictures of those. There must be photographs of those pieces at Dumbarton Oaks.
GV: What happened to the photographs that you had taken?
EA: I gave them away. I didn't take many pictures.
GV: You were giving them away?
EA: No, I wasn't taking them. Larry Majewski would take them.
GV: Yes.
EA: I'll show you the ones I have, but they are all taken by Larry. I would only do the enlargement. With a friend of mine, we'd enlarge photographs.
GV: So you were taking the films and –
EA: No, no, they – we – these were for me.
GV: For you, but you were enlarging them in a dark room?
EA: Yes.
GV: And this was in the Yildiz Apartment?
EA: No, no, it wasn't there, dear. This was at a friend's house. We were doing this for ourselves, not for them.
GV: So, for yourself. Well, there is also this story about the removal and installment of the bronze doors of Hagia Sofia.
EA: Let me tell you about that. Those doors – they are very old. I mean, they are from the Hellenistic period. Someone named Carlo Bertelli came from Italy for – to clean and restore those doors. And, well, Saban had an older brother, his name was Salih. He was unbelievable. Van Nice used to call him – he would say, "He's a medieval man." He would lift the enormous door by himself. How would he do it, how come? Well, anyway he – those doors were cleaned, and crosses and things were exposed. This was Bertelli's work. Also there happened something tragic. They put some of that bronze on the floor and they got stolen. Whoever stole them was unknown. I mean, I guess, they were handed over to the guy who roasted chickpeas.
GV: I think, their installment was also –
EA: Bertelli took care of that. The door was not completely removed, to begin with. The doors were not removed.
GV: They were not?
EA: No, no, no. There was no way!
GV: Yes, they really are very large. I think, also, that there was this group of Armenian artisans at the covered bazaar – one or two artisans. Did you –
EA: I don't know about them.
GV: You don't know about them. Alright. If I told you names of some people whom we don't know, perhaps you could –
EA: Go ahead.
GV: First is this Tahsin Bey that we have come across. I thought that it may be Tahsin Oz, but –
EA: Ha! No, his name was not Tahsin, though. His last name was Oz. I think he was the director of the Archaeological Museum.
GV: Was he? Do you know anyone by the name of Tahsin?
EA: I don't personally, but I think this may be him.
GV: Boris Ermeloff?
EA: I don't know him. Wait, he was a friend of – the one you mentioned – of Mister Walker's.
GV: Ermoloff?
EA: Ermoloff.
GV: A friend of Walker's.
EA: I mean, he was staying with him.
GV: He was staying at Walker's. Yes, okay.
EA: I think, perhaps, that he was the Polish Ambassador. He was – well, there was this great antiques dealer here by the name of Zakos.
GV: An antiques dealer.
EA: And so, he used to have very large pieces. This antique – this guy goes and buys a coin, a very expensive coin, from him. He shows this coin to Whittemore in the evening. Whittemore tells him that it's a fake and tells him to return it. And so, he takes it back to Zakos. "For the life of me," says Zakos, "this is not a fake!" "No." and so Zakos gives him back his money and half an hour later Whittemore shows up and says: "Where's that coin that Ermeloff brought you? – and "don't sell these things to illiterate persons after this." He pays him and places the coin in his pocket.
GV: Anybody by the name of Richard or Robert Gregory?
EA: I don't know them.
GV: You don't know them. Alexander Piankoff?
EA: Alexander?
GV: Piankoff.
EA: I don't know them.
GV: Nor him. Alright. Jack Loveless?
EA: [No response.]
GV: No. Okay, we come across the names of certain people that we think were workers: Halil, Hayyam.
EA: They were laborers – just masons, you know.
GV: Yes, alright. Then there is a person named Halasi Khun.
EA: Halasi Khun. I know him, but – he is a well-known person – but I can't recall who he was.
GV: Yes. Peppa?
EA: Who?
GV: Peppa.
EA: Peppa was the maid at Paul's apartment. She was a maid.
GV: But she did not work in the Yildiz Apartment, did she?
EA: She worked in the Yildiz Apartment.
GV: So she was there.
EA: She was there. She would stay during the winter, too. She would stay there. She was a kind of a, well, a care-taker. I would take her monthly payment to her. Later on when she quit the job, they got her out of the apartment. There was not much need in the winter in the first place. And Paul Underwood had been sending her – he had been sending a certain amount of money every month until the day he died. And I would take that money to her.
GV: Was Peppa of Greek origin?
EA: Yes, she was Greek. Also half-blind.
GV: Was she? And about Koco – we have already talked about the two Kocos. We have also come across someone called Nashi, or, perhaps, Naashi.
EA: Nashi. Nashi must have been the brother of this Koco.
GV: Of which Koco, though?
EA: Of the one with the middle name. Well, he was the brother of one of them. The one who was Carroll Wales' friend?
GV: Gano, Seth Gano, I think…
EA: I have heard his name, but don't remember him.
GV: You don't know him. There's also this person, Mehmet, who constantly comes up.
EA: Mehmet.
GV: He would carry buckets, apparently.
EA: [No response.]
GV: He must have been an unimportant person, then. There are a couple more names, but – McMurray, for example, is one.
EA: [No response.]
GV: You don't know him either. Yes, alright Is there anything else that you would like to tell? This is it for my questions.
EA: Not really, no. I don't think there is anything left.
GV: Would Mrs. Atabay like to add anything?
Mrs. Atabay: No, no. I was not in that world actually. And yet, I know most of the names that you brought up here, of course. I mean, I know them as friends.
EA: Let me also give you these – book of visitors to Kariye, with signatures. There are two. Take them both.
GV: I would appreciate it.
EA: You take those.
GV: Are there any – are there any photographs of the workers?
GV: Or your photgraphs –
EA: No, no.
GV: – of that sort? No, okay. I will end the recording now but I would like to show you a couple of photographs of people you may recognize.
EA: Do show!
GV: Alright.]]>