Jale İnan

Jale İnan (1 February 1914 – 26 February 2001) was a Turkish archaeologist, and she is considered to be the first Turkish woman to have been active in the discipline. She led excavations in Perga and Side which resulted in the expansion of the Antalya Museum. Her restoration work on the Temple of Apollo in Side was noted for its significance to Turkish heritage. Her scientific work on the "Weary Hercules" statue in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston formed the legal basis for return of the bust of the statue to the Antalya Museum to be reunited with the statue's base. The Antalya Women's Museum has an annual award named in her honour which recognizes the woman of the year.

Jale İnan
Bust of Jale İnan at a public park in Kuşadası, Turkey
Born	Jale Oğan Istanbul, Turkey
Died	26 February 2001(2001-02-26) (aged 87)
Nationality	Turkish
Occupation	archaeologist, educator
Years active	1943-2000
Known for	first Turkish woman archaeologist, known for reuniting pieces of Weary Hercules.

Early life

Jale Ogan[1] was born on 1 February 1914 in İstanbul[2] to Mesture Hanım and Aziz Ogan as their second daughter[3] Her father was the curator and director of the İzmir Archeology Museum for many years and later became the director of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. During the beginning decades of the Turkish Republic, he brought transformation to curatorial work in the country by systematically cataloguing the holdings and utilizing laboratories to scientifically restore objects and artifacts. He also opened galleries to the public expanding museum collections[4] and encouraged his daughter in her desire to study archaeology. After graduating from the Erenköy Girls High School in 1934, her father helped her secure a scholarship to study abroad, since there was no opportunity for her to continue studies in Turkey.[5]

Studying in Germany, with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation scholarship, Ogan began her archaeological training in Berlin,[2] at the German Archaeological Institute.[6] The following year, she was awarded a scholarship to continue studying by the Turkish government.[2] Despite the war, Ogan was determined to complete her doctorate and though bombs regularly fell on the city, she took her thesis and notes into a bunker continuing to work.[5] Ogan graduated in 1943 after completing her doctoral thesis, Kunstgeschichtliche Untersuchung der Opferhandlung auf römischen Münzen (Examination of Art History in Sacrifice Rituals on Roman Coins), alongside Gerhart Rodenwaldt.[1]

Career

Ogan returned to Turkey 1943 and became an assistant to Clemens Bosch, Chair of Ancient History and Numismatics for the University of Istanbul. In 1944, she married Mustafa İnan, a civil engineer and instructor at the Istanbul Technical University, and the following year gave birth to their son, Hüseyin İnan.[1] She spent the next two years taking photographs of artifacts and organizing the archive at the university.[5] In 1946, she worked with Arif Müfid Mansel to found a chair of classical archaeology at Istanbul University,[7] as previously the university had no independent archaeological department.[5] That same year, she began excavations with Mansel on the site at Perga working on the Temple of Artemis.[8] The following year, they began digs at Side,[9] initially working on the site of the Temple of Apollo, continuing their excavations until 1966.[8] During this period, in 1962, the conversion of one of the baths on the site into a museum was completed[10] under İnan's direction[11] and the Antalya Museum had to be expanded twice to house the findings.[12]

İnan began publishing articles in both German and Turkish on her studies of sculptures. The first was an evaluation of Roman portraits from the Anatolia region, Antalya bölgesi Roma devri portreleri: Römische Porträts aus dem Gebiet von Antalya (Roman portraits from the area of Antalya, 1965) and the following year she published Roman and Early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor with Elisabeth Alföldi-Rosenbaum.[7] In 1967, İnan was put in charge of the excavations at Perga[8] and that same year, a large group of bronze statues appeared in the United States with a murky provenance, but with claims of possible origin in south-west Anatolia. İnan began working to try to verify the actual location of origin in 1973.[11] Unlike other finds in which the sites were known and misappropriated pieces later appeared in museums, the bronzes were unique in that the pieces appeared in a museum but their place of origin was unknown.[13]

From 1970 to 1972, İnan worked at a dig site in the ancient city of Cremna in the Pisidia region and then between 1972 and 1979 excavated at Seleucia along the Mediterranean coast north of Manavgat, uncovering the city agora,[14] as well as several baths and the temple structure. Dated to the Hellenistic period, the agora was constructed in the Ionic Order and contained decorations depicting the Seven Sages of Greece as well as mosaics.[15] She was appointed as a full professor at Istanbul University in 1974,[7] and upon Mansel's death, the following year was elevated to the head of the archaeology department.[11]

In 1980, while excavating at Perga, İnan uncovered the bottom half of a 2nd century AD copy of Lysippos' "Weary Heracles".[16] Rumors at the dig had led them to a workman who was suspected of taking statuary, but no one suspected that the upper torso of the statue was stolen. The following year, the missing half surfaced in New York.[17] The bottom half of the statue was displayed at the Antalia Museum and the upper half was displayed at MFA, after their 1982 acquisition of the piece.[18] From 1981 to 1990, İnan led restoration work on the Temple of Apollo at Side, conserving a significant monument of Turkey's cultural heritage.[11] Though she retired from the university in 1983,[7][14] İnan continued to work, beginning excavations again in Perga at the Theater in 1985 continuing her work there until 1992.[19]

In 1990, İnan uncovered the Sebasteion, or imperial cult temple, in a dig at Bubon, which she attributed as the place which had housed the bronze statues she had first heard of in 1967. Her findings were published in the book,[11] Boubon Sebasteionu ve heykelleri üzerine son araştırmalar in 1994.[13] The bronzes were said to have been brought to the Burdur Archaeological Museum with an unknown origin, but due to the unauthorized excavations reported at Bubon at that time and the similarities to artifacts found there, İnan began her investigation at that location.[20] From the looter's diary and examination of scattered pieces of arms, heads and torsos held in various collections worldwide, she confirmed that the building had inscriptions for fourteen statues.[21] Though her attribution of seven statues to the Bubon site gained wide acceptance in archaeological circles, the scattered nature of the pieces and the unauthorized excavation of the statues have raised doubts by other researchers.[22]

In 1990, a journalist, Özgen Acar was attending an exhibition at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and went to see the private collection of Shelby White and Leon Levy. He spotted the statue and thought that it looked familiar. After publishing photographs of the statue in the American art magazine Connoisseur, İnan did a photo stitching of the bust portion and agreed with Acar that the two pieces were of the same statue.[23] She was determined to retrieve the statue as part of Turkey's cultural heritage and made a plaster cast of the lower portion to prove that the two parts would fit together.[18] İnan, Engin Özgen, the General Director Monuments and Museums and students went to Boston with the cast to meet with experts and lawyers, but their results were rejected. At her own expense, İnan made a second trip,[23] with a plaster cast made by an American sculptor, which the Turkish government had hired, in 1992.[17] The second cast conclusively proved the two parts were of the same statue,[23] but the MFA continued to fight returning the piece to Turkey until 2011.[24]

Beginning in 1995,[19] İnan who had Parkinson's disease,[5] curtailed her field work and focused her work on publishing. Works produced in this period included Toroslar’da Bir Antik Kent: Lyrbe? Seleukeia? (1998) and Perge'nin Roma devri heykeltraşlığı 1 (2000), which catalogued the finds made in Perga from 1946 to 1992.[19]

Death and legacy

In 1989, in honor of İnan's 75th birthday, a book, Festschrift für Jale Inan, was published by colleagues and friends in honor of her lifelong accomplishments.[25] Prior to her death, on 26 February 2001,[5] İnan donated her books and compilations to the Antalya Museum.[19] In her honor, the Antalya Women's Museum established the Woman of the Year Award, given annually to recognize women who have contributed to Turkish culture and the development of women.[26][27]

References

Citations

1. Müller 2013, p. 163.
2. Başlgelen 2007, p. 116.
3. Dirican 1998, p. 86.
4. Savino 2015, p. 88.
5. Uysal 2001.
6. Müller 2013, pp. 162-163.
7. İstanbul Üniversitesi 2012.
8. Alanyali 2014.
9. Müller 2013, p. 165.
10. Alkim 1964, p. 511.
11. Başlgelen 2007, p. 117.
12. Aktüel Arkeoloji Dergisi 2014.
13. Haley 2000, p. 16.
14. Antalya Women Museum 2016.
15. Türkiye Kültür Portalı 2013.
16. Pope 1994.
17. Montalbano 1994, p. 3.
18. Öztürk 2011.
19. Başlgelen 2007, p. 121.
20. Haley 2000, pp. 26-27.
21. Haley 2000, p. 28.
22. Haley 2000, p. 27.
23. Çalışkan 2014.
24. Edgers 2011.
25. Başlgelen 2007, p. 120.
26. Dön 2015.
27. Haberler 2016.

Bibliography

• Alanyali, Hüseyin Sabri (2014). "Side Kazıları" [Side Excavations]. Side Kazıları (in Turkish). Tepebaşı, Eskişehir, Turkey: Anadolu Üniversitesi. Archived from the original on 23 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Alkim, U. Bahadir (1964). "Archaeological Activities in Turkey (1962): Explorations and Excavations Undertaken under the Auspices of the Turkish Historical Society". Orientalia. Rome, Italy: Gregorian Biblical Press. 33 (Nova series): 500–512. ISSN 0030-5367. JSTOR 43074057.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Başlgelen, Nezih (March–April 2007). "A Memorable Scholar of Roman Sculpture and Classical Archaeology in Turkey, Jale Inan" (PDF). Seramik Turkiye (in Turkish and English). Istanbul, Turkey: Seramik Federasyonu Adına Sahibi (20): 116–121. ISSN 1304-6578. Retrieved 23 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Çalışkan, Kerem (2 February 2014). "Yorgun Herkül'ün kahramanı" [The hero of Weary Hercules]. Turkiye Turizm (in Turkish). Ankara, Turkey. Archived from the original on 18 March 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Dirican, Murat (August 1998). "Türkiye Arkeolojisinde Bir Hanımefendi: Jale İnan" [The first lady of Turkish archaeology: Jale İnan] (PDF). Bilim ve Teknik (in Turkish). Ankara, Turkey: Türkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Araştırma Kurumu (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) (369): 84–90. ISSN 1300-3380. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Dön, Geri (2015). "The "Woman of the Year Award" in Antalya was given to Hülya Bilgin". Antalya, Turkey: Antalya Festivals. Archived from the original on 2 May 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Edgers, Geoff (23 September 2011). "After years of denial, MFA to return 'Weary Herakles' statue to Turkey". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. Retrieved 24 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Haley, Shannon M. (June 2000). The intellectual consequences of undocumented excavation, with special reference to Roman period archaeological material from Turkey (PDF) (Master of Arts thesis). Ankara, Turkey: Bilkent University.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Montalbano, William D. (27 April 1994). "Column One: Turkey Retrieves Its Riches : Tired of seeing its heritage stolen away, this cradle of ancient wonders scours the world for purloined pieces, then uses a $50-million carrot and stick to bring them home". The L.A. Times. Los Angeles, California. Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Müller, Stephanie (2013). "Jale İnan—Wegbereiterin der Archäologie in der Türkei". In Fries, Jana Esther; Gutsmiedl-Schümann, Doris (eds.). Ausgräberinnen, Forscherinnen, Pionierinnen: Ausgewählte Porträts früher Archäologinnen im Kontext ihrer Zeit [Jale İnan—pioneer of archeology in Turkey] (in German). Münster, Germany: Waxmann Verlag. pp. 161–168. ISBN 978-3-8309-7872-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Öztürk, Emre (25 September 2011). "Herkül'ün gizli kahramanı Jale Hoca!" [Hercules' hidden hero Teacher Jale] (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey: Gazete Vatan. Archived from the original on 8 May 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Pope, Hugh (5 April 1994). "Turks undertake a Herculean task for art's sake: Ankara wants to reclaim a wealth of 'stolen' Greek and Roman antiquities that are now abroad". The Independent. London, England. Archived from the original on 23 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Savino, Melania (January 2015). "Aziz Ogan and the Development of Archaeological Museums in the Turkish Republic". Museum History Journal. London, England: Taylor & Francis. 8 (1): 88–101. doi:10.1179/1936981614Z.00000000039. ISSN 1936-9816.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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• "Antalya'da Bir Arkeoloji Çınarının Gölgesinde Prof. Dr. Jale İnan" [In the shade of the Plane Antalyan Archaeology Professor Dr. Jale İnan]. Aktüel Arkeoloji Dergisi (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey: Aktüel Arkeoloji Basın Yayıncılık Turizm Ltd. 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
• "Jale İnan 2015 Yılın Kadını Ödül Töreni" [2015 Jale Inan Woman of the Year Award Ceremony] (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey: Haberler. 1 February 2016. Archived from the original on 2 February 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2016.
• "Lyrbe (Seleukeia) Antik Kenti—Antalya" [Lyrb (Seleukeia) Ancient City—Antalya]. Türkiye Kültür Portalı (in Turkish). Ankara, Turkey: Ministry of Culture and Tourism Ministry. 19 February 2013. Archived from the original on 23 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
• "Prof. Dr. Jale İnan Award". Antalya Women Museum. Antalya, Turkey. 2016. Archived from the original on 22 October 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
• "Prof. Dr. Jale İnan 1974-1983". Edebiyat Fakültesi (Faculty of Letters) (in Turkish). Istanbul, Turkey: İstanbul Üniversitesi (Istanbul University). 13 December 2012. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 24 October 2016.