The Weaver's Han

In other adventures around the city yesterday, I had a "top ten" moment as the students would say. My friend Waverley took us to the old weaver's han, near the spice bazaar. A han is kind of like a square, bordered on all sides by sometimes up to four stories of rooms and workshop spaces. It is generally enclosed with one gate or entrance that can be locked up at night. You can be walking down the street and walk through one door or gateway, and walk into one of these little compounds, though you had no idea it was there and its vastness was not visible from the street. In the olden days, these were the center of trade for a particular industry. Just like shops are clustered together according to their wares, each han was the center of commerce for a particular merchandise. Traders would come along the Silk Road and bring their spices or cloth or whatever they were selling and come to the appropriate han, where they would find all that they needed there, included rooms to stay in, a fountain for washing up and water for their horses, generally a little mosque as well. Inside the han, the center of the square would perhaps be used for production or storage of their wares, and the rooms and hallways along the edge for shops and selling.  This blog has a good picture of a han closer to Ankara, just to give you an idea of the layout, though it has been converted into a restaurant.

Today in particular hans, you can still find some of the great artisan trades of old. We visited the biggest han in Istanbul, that had three squares in it and a vast number of rooms. Of course, it doesn't look like it would have, hundreds of years ago, but it was still impressive. The weavers and their looms were moved out in recent years because the vibrations due to the equipment. There was one leftover loom however, and I really thought it was a thing of beauty. It reminded me of the quote I posted earlier in the blog about the grandeur of time's decay...

We met a lovely little old man, who unlocked a door for us and we were climbing up and up until we came out on the roof of the han itself - so old that there are trees growing on it.

The view... was breathtaking. It really blew me away. You could see the Galata Bridge down in front of us, and the Yeni Cami Mosque (translated as the "New Mosque" because it's only 500 years old). You could see the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. You could see a vast amount of the city itself.

And then the call to prayer began. It began with one, then another chimed in, then another... That was my "top ten" moment right there, listening to the "adhan" from every single mosque in the city... almost as if they were calling back and forth to each other. It was beautiful.

My kids sat with Waverley's daughter Addy and drank iced tea and just "chilled" on the rooftop watching a butterfly float by. I was struck again how this experience is so enriching for them, though they don't even realize it. I am very grateful to be here.