Yesilyurt
Encyclopedia
Yeşilyurt is a small town in southwestern Turkey
at a distance of 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) from the city of Muğla
, center of Muğla Province
.
It is accessed by a turnout at a short distance from Muğla-İzmir
highway just before entering Muğla. The town is located along slopes in the southern end of a plain of the same name.
being a matter of anecdotes among the inhabitants.
The historical name Pisye is pre-Greek
and may be compared with other pis- names encountered across Anatolia
such as Pisidai, Pisilis and Pisa.. A number of Turkish sources associate it with the toponym "Pissuwa" reportedly mentioned in Luwian
or Hittite
sources.
(the other similar formations in the immediate neighborhood are the Muğla
, Gülağzı, Yerkesik, Akkaya
, Yenice
, Çamköy and Ula plains).
Among these, Yeşilyurt plain, as well as Çamköy and Ula plains, ceased to be fully hermetical in time, and with a smaller depression opening a passage in its north, Yeşilyurt plain acquired the characteristics of fluvio-karst formations, becoming the starting point of the Çineçay (Marsyas
) that joins the Menderes river 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) farther north near Aydın
.
Since, according to Greek mythology
, Marsyas River stems from the blood of the satyre of the same name, punished by Apollo
by being flayed and nailed to a tree for having a lost the music contest between the two, the satyre's final place of rest should be around Yeşilyurt.
Is it to be added that, until the recent building of highways, contacts between the several plains of the inner Muğla region with either the coastal regions, or the with inland centers (through one of the three difficult passes; to the northwest to Milas
, to the north to the Menderes plain through Gökbel valley following Çineçay, or to the northeast to Tavas
) were quite arduous, and the region as a whole always tended to develop its peculiarities.
These traditional activities have been re-organized in the framework of a cooperative project in the 1990s by the then governor for Muğla Province, Lale Aytaman
, Turkey's first female governor).
As such, Yeşilyurt has become a regular furnisher of upmarket textile products to niche Turkish brands as Beymen and Vakko. The fabrics woven in Yeşilyurt have been used in the movies The Warrior
, Harry Potter
and Troy (film)
, through connections set up by the famed film costume coordinator Jeeda Barford and her Turkish husband.
The locals produce the silk, the wool and the cotton fabric themselves. Natural dyes are still extensively used. Two particularities of most of Yeşilyurt fabrics have to do with a raw material and a color. Wild cotton, providing a more yellowish taint, is widely employed. And also, a tone of reddish brown, or a brownish red, obtained naturally from erica vulgaris and called şaşkırmızı in the region, is like a trade-mark of locally woven textiles. It is interesting to note that the color in question has always been popular in the region, and is also reflected in many artefacts from the Carian era.
called Pisi Asar, at a distance of about a mile to the south-east of Yeşilyurt and the site called Arslanlı further to the north, with traces of foundations and walls, are visible on the surface to this day. Arslanlı (the name meaning, the place with the lion) locality, at a distance of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the town center to the north, is where a lion's statue, on display at the near the municipality building, as well as abundant pottery was found. Further traces of stone craftsmanship is also noticeable at Arslanlı and it has been suggested that ancient Pisye was constituted in two separate settlements. A number of additional findings aside from the lion's statue garnish the municipal park, and further ancient material can sometimes be detected in the structure of a few old houses and the old mosque.
Epigraphical
evidence points out to the tendency shown by Pisye's ancient inhabitants to expand their sphere of influence in the direction of the sea, the coast being quite near at a distance only about twenty kilometers to the south-east. By some time in the middle of the third century BC (between 275 and 225 BC) Pisye had joined part of the population of Pladasa, located near the Gulf of Akbük
on the Gulf of Kerme (Ceramic Gulf) in a sympoliteia
in which the identity of the partners remained preserved in the new, combined entity. The joint designation persisted as late as the first century AD. This union, which may have been related to the financial troubles Pladasa was having in the late 4th century BC, had allowed Pisye to gain a port and was possibly the continuation of absorption, in fuller form this time, by Pisye of two other entities, Koloneis and Londeis, whose territories lay between Pisye and Pladasa..
Another mention of Pisye dates from 196 B.C., in which the Rhodian
commander Niagoras is been recorded as having re-taken Pisye (together with the cities of Idyma ve Kyllandis to the sea) from king Philip V of Macedon
.
Under Rhodian domination the entire area of subject Peraia on the Anatolian mainland formed a buffer between Stratonikeia
and the sea, in which Pisye played an important part. Both the main route along the valley of Marsyas down to the sea at Idyma at the furthest end of the Gulf of Keramos and the alternative route along the valley of the present-day Kartal Deresi (or Kocaçay) stream down to present-day Sarnıç and to the sea at present-day Akbük, slightly west of Idyma, were lined with a series of fortresses and Pisye was where the two routes converged.
The Turkish
settlement in the region as a whole during the Menteşe period is known to have taken place through migrations following the Kütahya
-Tavas axis. Many families in the town can trace their roots to Bozkır
district of Konya
. Also, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire
, many Turkish migrants from the Balkans
or Crete
have settled here. Yeşilyurt has a beautiful cemetery in the typical Turkish style, situated at the top of a hill, with a view of the plain below.
The tomb of a sage named Pisili Hoca is among the graves, and it is told that Süleyman the Magnificent had paid Pisili Hoca a visit to receive his prayers on his way to the conquest of Rhodes
. Today, the tomb is a much visited shrine of local importance, with prayers and sacrifices accompanying the visits.
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
at a distance of 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) from the city of Muğla
Mugla
Muğla is a city in south-western Turkey. It is the center of the district the same name, as well as of Muğla Province, which stretches along Turkey´s Aegean coast. Muğla center is situated inland at an altitude of 660 m and lies at a distance of about from the nearest seacoast in the Gulf of...
, center of Muğla Province
Mugla Province
Muğla Province is a province of Turkey, at the country's south-western corner, on the Aegean Sea. Its seat is Muğla, about inland, while some of Turkey's largest holiday resorts, such as Bodrum, Ölüdeniz, Marmaris and Fethiye, are on the coast in Muğla....
.
It is accessed by a turnout at a short distance from Muğla-İzmir
Izmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...
highway just before entering Muğla. The town is located along slopes in the southern end of a plain of the same name.
Etymology
The township's official name was Pisiköy until 1961 and this name's short form Pisi is still commonly used to refer to the settlement and its plain across the region. As such, the town had retained its historical name until recently, the name change decided by the central government in AnkaraAnkara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....
being a matter of anecdotes among the inhabitants.
The historical name Pisye is pre-Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and may be compared with other pis- names encountered across Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
such as Pisidai, Pisilis and Pisa.. A number of Turkish sources associate it with the toponym "Pissuwa" reportedly mentioned in Luwian
Luwian language
Luwian is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. Luwian is closely related to Hittite, and was among the languages spoken during the second and first millennia BC by population groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria...
or Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
sources.
Geography
Yeşilyurt plain is situated in one of the pot-shaped small plains surrounded by mountains as formed by depressions in the NeogeneNeogene
The Neogene is a geologic period and system in the International Commission on Stratigraphy Geologic Timescale starting 23.03 ± 0.05 million years ago and ending 2.588 million years ago...
(the other similar formations in the immediate neighborhood are the Muğla
Mugla
Muğla is a city in south-western Turkey. It is the center of the district the same name, as well as of Muğla Province, which stretches along Turkey´s Aegean coast. Muğla center is situated inland at an altitude of 660 m and lies at a distance of about from the nearest seacoast in the Gulf of...
, Gülağzı, Yerkesik, Akkaya
Akkaya
Akkaya is a surname shared by several notable people, all of whom were born in Turkey in the latter half of the 20th century:* İlkay Akkaya * Deniz Akkaya * Gülşah Akkaya...
, Yenice
Yenice
Yenice refers to various towns :In Turkey:*Yenice, Çanakkale, a district of Çanakkale Province in Turkey*Yenice, Karabük, a district of Karabük Province in Turkey...
, Çamköy and Ula plains).
Among these, Yeşilyurt plain, as well as Çamköy and Ula plains, ceased to be fully hermetical in time, and with a smaller depression opening a passage in its north, Yeşilyurt plain acquired the characteristics of fluvio-karst formations, becoming the starting point of the Çineçay (Marsyas
Marsyas
In Greek mythology, the satyr Marsyas is a central figure in two stories involving music: in one, he picked up the double flute that had been abandoned by Athena and played it; in the other, he challenged Apollo to a contest of music and lost his hide and life...
) that joins the Menderes river 100 kilometres (62.1 mi) farther north near Aydın
Aydin
Aydın is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River at a commanding position for the region extending from the uplands of the valley down to the seacoast...
.
Since, according to Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
, Marsyas River stems from the blood of the satyre of the same name, punished by Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
by being flayed and nailed to a tree for having a lost the music contest between the two, the satyre's final place of rest should be around Yeşilyurt.
Is it to be added that, until the recent building of highways, contacts between the several plains of the inner Muğla region with either the coastal regions, or the with inland centers (through one of the three difficult passes; to the northwest to Milas
Milas
Milas is an ancient city and the seat of the district of the same name in Muğla Province in southwestern Turkey. The city commands a region with an active economy, and the region is very rich in history and its remains, the whole territory of Milas district containing a remarkable twenty-seven...
, to the north to the Menderes plain through Gökbel valley following Çineçay, or to the northeast to Tavas
Tavas
Tavas is a town and a district of Denizli Province of Turkey, on a wide plain on the road to Muğla, near to the district of Kale...
) were quite arduous, and the region as a whole always tended to develop its peculiarities.
Features
Yeşilyurt is famed for its hand-made textile products woven in silk or cotton.These traditional activities have been re-organized in the framework of a cooperative project in the 1990s by the then governor for Muğla Province, Lale Aytaman
Lale Aytaman
Dr. Lale Aytaman was the governor of Muğla province in Turkey from 1991 to 1995 and the first female governor of Turkey.-Education:Lale Aytaman finished St. George's Austrian High School in Istanbul. She was an AFS-exchage student in 1962 in Phoenix, Arizona...
, Turkey's first female governor).
As such, Yeşilyurt has become a regular furnisher of upmarket textile products to niche Turkish brands as Beymen and Vakko. The fabrics woven in Yeşilyurt have been used in the movies The Warrior
The Warrior
The Warrior is a 2001 film by British-Indian filmmaker Asif Kapadia. It stars Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan as Lafcadia, a warrior in feudal Rajasthan who attempts to give up the sword....
, Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
and Troy (film)
Troy (film)
Troy is a 2004 epic war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen based on the events of the Trojan War. Its cast includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector.It was nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design.-Plot:...
, through connections set up by the famed film costume coordinator Jeeda Barford and her Turkish husband.
The locals produce the silk, the wool and the cotton fabric themselves. Natural dyes are still extensively used. Two particularities of most of Yeşilyurt fabrics have to do with a raw material and a color. Wild cotton, providing a more yellowish taint, is widely employed. And also, a tone of reddish brown, or a brownish red, obtained naturally from erica vulgaris and called şaşkırmızı in the region, is like a trade-mark of locally woven textiles. It is interesting to note that the color in question has always been popular in the region, and is also reflected in many artefacts from the Carian era.
History
Some remains of the ancient settlement which consist of the acropolisAcropolis
Acropolis means "high city" in Greek, literally city on the extremity and is usually translated into English as Citadel . For purposes of defense, early people naturally chose elevated ground to build a new settlement, frequently a hill with precipitous sides...
called Pisi Asar, at a distance of about a mile to the south-east of Yeşilyurt and the site called Arslanlı further to the north, with traces of foundations and walls, are visible on the surface to this day. Arslanlı (the name meaning, the place with the lion) locality, at a distance of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the town center to the north, is where a lion's statue, on display at the near the municipality building, as well as abundant pottery was found. Further traces of stone craftsmanship is also noticeable at Arslanlı and it has been suggested that ancient Pisye was constituted in two separate settlements. A number of additional findings aside from the lion's statue garnish the municipal park, and further ancient material can sometimes be detected in the structure of a few old houses and the old mosque.
Epigraphical
Epigraphy
Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...
evidence points out to the tendency shown by Pisye's ancient inhabitants to expand their sphere of influence in the direction of the sea, the coast being quite near at a distance only about twenty kilometers to the south-east. By some time in the middle of the third century BC (between 275 and 225 BC) Pisye had joined part of the population of Pladasa, located near the Gulf of Akbük
Akbük, Didim
Akbük is a small holiday resort on a bay in the Aegean Region near Didim and with a permanent population of 4,000 and a summer population of 50,000. It was bounded to Milas district in Muğla Province before inclusion to Yenihisar one in Aydın Province in 1991. It has a municipality since 1991....
on the Gulf of Kerme (Ceramic Gulf) in a sympoliteia
Sympoliteia
Sympoliteia is a former municipality in Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Aigialeia, of which it is a municipal unit. Population 7,840 . The seat of the municipality was in Rododafni. Sympoliteia was one of several ancient terms...
in which the identity of the partners remained preserved in the new, combined entity. The joint designation persisted as late as the first century AD. This union, which may have been related to the financial troubles Pladasa was having in the late 4th century BC, had allowed Pisye to gain a port and was possibly the continuation of absorption, in fuller form this time, by Pisye of two other entities, Koloneis and Londeis, whose territories lay between Pisye and Pladasa..
Another mention of Pisye dates from 196 B.C., in which the Rhodian
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
commander Niagoras is been recorded as having re-taken Pisye (together with the cities of Idyma ve Kyllandis to the sea) from king Philip V of Macedon
Philip V of Macedon
Philip V was King of Macedon from 221 BC to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of Rome. Philip was attractive and charismatic as a young man...
.
Under Rhodian domination the entire area of subject Peraia on the Anatolian mainland formed a buffer between Stratonikeia
Stratonikeia
-References:* from the Catholic Encyclopedia *Richard Stillwell, William L. MacDonald, Marian Holland McAllister ; , , Princeton, *Smith, William ; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, , London,...
and the sea, in which Pisye played an important part. Both the main route along the valley of Marsyas down to the sea at Idyma at the furthest end of the Gulf of Keramos and the alternative route along the valley of the present-day Kartal Deresi (or Kocaçay) stream down to present-day Sarnıç and to the sea at present-day Akbük, slightly west of Idyma, were lined with a series of fortresses and Pisye was where the two routes converged.
The Turkish
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
settlement in the region as a whole during the Menteşe period is known to have taken place through migrations following the Kütahya
Kütahya
Kütahya is a city in western Turkey with 212,444 inhabitants , lying on the Porsuk river, at 969 metres above sea level. It is the capital of Kütahya Province, inhabited by some 517 804 people...
-Tavas axis. Many families in the town can trace their roots to Bozkır
Bozkir
Bozkır is a town and district of Konya Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. According to 2008 census, population of the district is 31,601 of which 7,212 live in the town of Bozkır.The town occupied a central position in ancient Isauria...
district of Konya
Konya
Konya is a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey. The metropolitan area in the entire Konya Province had a population of 1,036,027 as of 2010, making the city seventh most populous in Turkey.-Etymology:...
. Also, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, many Turkish migrants from the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
or Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
have settled here. Yeşilyurt has a beautiful cemetery in the typical Turkish style, situated at the top of a hill, with a view of the plain below.
The tomb of a sage named Pisili Hoca is among the graves, and it is told that Süleyman the Magnificent had paid Pisili Hoca a visit to receive his prayers on his way to the conquest of Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
. Today, the tomb is a much visited shrine of local importance, with prayers and sacrifices accompanying the visits.