The Doughty-Wylies in Consulate gardens. Photo taken by Bell
Mavi Boncuk |
11/5/1907
Konia [Konya (Iconium)] Sat 11. [11 May 1907] I arrived yesterday about noon and found all your letters to my great joy. And then I went off and saw the English Consul, Doughty Wylie and his wife, and so to my dear good Laytved, the German Consul and we fell into talk and I stayed on to dinner and didn't get back to my hotel till 11 at night. I'm writing to Elsa about plans (I can scarcely bear the idea of not being at her wedding) and to Father about money. Ramsay arrives in 3 days and I've got a hundred thousand things to do so I'll write no more now. I've just telegraphed to you. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude.
All right, I'll tell the great Mogul I'm coming all the same. Thank you for the German proofs. The translation is fairly good. I must write to Heinemann and ask him if I can make some corrections. "Madame" is ridiculous for "Lady", "Granige Frau" wd be better don't you think?
I'm enchanted your book is such a success. But I knew it before the reviews came, out of my own head.
25/5/1907
[25 May 1907] Maden Sheher. Sat May 25 Dearest Mother. I really must begin a diary to you. The Ramsays arrived yesterday. I was in the middle of digging up a church when suddenly 2 carts hove into sight and there they were. It was about 3 in the afternoon. They instantly got out, refused to think of going to the tents, Lady R. made tea (for they were starving) in the apse and R. oblivious of all other considerations was at once lost in the problems the church presented. It was too delightful to have someone as much excited about it as I was! Lady R. is very talkative in a very Scotch accent; she appears not to know the smallest beginnings about archaeology of any kind, as far as I can make out, she is as deeply as she is ignorantly sympathetic about our doings and above all she is delighted with all my arrangements and receives what hospitality I can offer as if it were that of Buckingham Palace. Isn't it absurd (and suitable) that the only house of my own in which I have ever entertained guests of my own should be a tent. The Rs had arrived entirely without tents or any camping possessions at Konia [Konya (Iconium)] "nevertheless" writes Captain Wylie "he was most eager to set off to join you at once - in the wrong direction. I lent him 2 tents and headed him off towards you." They have brough their son Louis with them a spectacled creature of 17 or so who is deeply learned - birds and beasts and has a commission from the British Museum to collect the small mammalia of these parts. It takes time to make friends with a Scotch boy, but the process has been well begun. They had also brought with them a hoity toity Greek servant boy who at once refused to do a hand's turn of work for anyone in the camp including his masters, and was, I am glad to say, dismissed this morning. He rode off on a donkey to Arik Euren [Arikîren] and I hope we have seen the last of his kind. Now I must tell you something very very striking. The church on the entrance point of the Kara D. [Kara Dag], at which I worked for 2 days before R. came, has near it some great rocks and on the rocks I found a very queer inscription. The more I looked at it the queerer it became and the less I thought it could be Christian or anything that I knew so I took it down with great care, curious rabbit-headed things and winged sort of crosses and arms and circles, and with some trembling I showed it to R. The moment he looked at it he said "It's a Hittite inscription. This is the very thing I hoped most to find here." I think I've never been so elated. It's to be sent to Sayce at once and we now think of nothing but Hittites all the time. Now this is the manner of Asia Minor: there is never a shrine of Christian or Moslem but if you look long enough you will find it has been a holy place from the beginning of history, and so my church on the top of the hill stands on a site where the Hittites worshipped. Today we could not go on with the big church as the wall had run into a cornfield and the Father of corn, as Fattuh calls him, (ie the owner of the field) is away for 2 days at Karaman [(Laranda)]. So we must wait till he comes back and we can buy the cornfield from him. Therefore R. and I went off about 6.30 to another church on an outlying spur of the hills which makes a sort of natural redoubt guarding the village from the plains beyond. Here there is a church, very important and unplanned, a chapel and monastic buildings. There are several graffiti on the walls. Here I set to work to measure and R. to examine. Presently he began to find queer things, a trace of a very ancient sort of fortification and then we found cuttings in the rocks which puzzled us for a long time till I, who had seen the same before in Syria, discovered that they were wine presses and the long and the short of it is that we think we have a Hittite settlement at Madensheher and that this was the entrance fort. Of course we may get no more evidence - the thing will have to remain as a supposition, but the inscription on the top of the Kara D. is a fixed point. We had a very satisfactory day's work on the church. I finished my plan and found that the church had been ruined in early times and restored which explained some peculiarities about it that had puzzled Strzygowski (of course he had only seen photographs) and R. found a long inscription which brought our hearts into our mouths for we thought it might be a date. Can you imagine anything so provoking - it is dated, the 5th of March... and no year! For sheer tiresomeness the early Xians beat all other people hollow. However we'll get a date before we have done, you'll see. My camp is going on greased wheels - absit omen! Plenty and contentment abound! The Kurds are the joy and admiration of all and Fattuh is already the trusted friend of the whole Ramsay family.
16/7/1907
Tues July 16. [16 July 1907] Everything comes to an end, even the road from Akserai [Aksaray] to Konia [Konya (Iconium)]. We got in at 10 o'clock this morning and I am staying with the Wylies. I found quantities of letters, from you and Father and Hugo and Moll, and was delighted to have them. I leave on Friday for C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)] and have telegraphed to you to write there. I expect I shall be there about 4 days. Then probably to Graz if Strzyg is there. I'll let you know.Domnul gives me the first description of the wedding. It sounds all very very successful. Ever your affectionate daughter Gertrude
18/7/1907
[18 July 1907] British Vice Consulate Konia [Konya (Iconium)] Thursday 18 Dearest Mother. I am very much afraid I shall be delayed a few days by a tiresome incident that has arisen. I must tell you Fattuh is ill. He gave his head a horrible blow on a low doorway 2 years ago when he was with me and he has been ill on and off ever since. He suffers terrible from acute pains in the head and I fear there must be something wrong. I cannot of course leave him in this state to go back to Aleppo [Halab] without trying to do something for him and I had therefore determined to take him with me to C'ple [Istanbul (Constantinople)] to see a very good doctor there. But he is an Armenian and the difficulties they put in the way of their travelling are inconceivable. Yesterday when I sent his teskerek to be visaed the authorities here said they had no power to allow him to go to C'ple even with me. I telegraphed at once to the Grand Vizier and to the Embassy asking for a special permit for him but it will probably take a day or to [sic] to get it. If I don't get it (a contingency I don't anticipate) I shall be obliged to go via Smyrna [Izmir], where I can take him I think, and let him see a German doctor there who, I hear, is a good man, but I am positively sickened by the idea of having to return to Smyrna and spend some days there. However I would do a good deal for Fattuh and this is not much, as I should come on to C'ple by sea and so home by Graz as before. I expect I shall hear from C'ple in a day or two and meantime I shall use these days of delay by doing a thing I ought to do, namely going down to Ivriz near Eregli, to see a new Hittite monument and Christian sanctuary which have been discovered there and not yet recorded in any way. I leave tomorrow morning and shall be back on Sat evening so the time is not wasted. I hope to get off on Monday, either straight to C'ple or via Smyrna. It's a great alleviation to be staying with the Wylies - they are dears, both of them. I've had a very pleasant restful two days. It's pretty hot but one sits out in their big garden under the trees and Laytved and others drop in to call.The rules and regulations of this country are damnable. And I do so pine to set off home! Your affectionate daughter Gertrude
From her Diary
23/7/1907
Tues July 23 [23 July 1907] Capt DW [Doughty Wylie]'s birthday. Mrs W and I went out and measured the church of St Amphilochius. Amphilochius was supposed to be a friend of the first chelabi but was in reality many centuries earlier. Much rebuilt and pulled about. Sent a man to Fitzm. [Fitzmaurice] saying I was starting tomorrow. All Konia [Konya (Iconium)] came in to tea to congratulate Captain DW including the old Socrotines whom I had not seen. After dinner we sat talking in the garden till near 12.
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