Ankara Araştırmaları Dergisi (Jul 2023)

Reading Elements of the Cultural Landscape Through an Urban Experience Route: The West Ankara Tumuli Trail

  • Ela Alanyalı Aral,
  • Gizem Deniz Guneri Söğüt,
  • Buket Ergun Kocaili,
  • Ceren Özcan Tatar

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5505/jas.2023.28199
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 55 – 75

Abstract

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The network of roads, settlements and the distribution of the tumuli that constitute the unique cultural landscape of Central Anatolian are primary indicators of the determinacy of natural topography and water elements, as well as the spatial continuities that have been enduring since Antiquity. Ankara Tumuli can be defined within this framework as elements of a cultural landscape that has regional expanse. To properly evaluate the significance of the Ankara Tumuli visible in the city, they must not be viewed as merely isolated structures, but with careful consideration of their entire urban and regional context. Ankara Tumuli have been researched and documented since the end of the 19th century, with about twenty tumuli to the west of the city center being studied and excavated during the Republican era. Due to increasing urbanization after the 1950s, increasing numbers of tumuli in urban areas were either destroyed, or became forgotten as they lost their primary visual characteristics. Nevertheless, research conducted since the 2010s has used historical photographs and maps to recreate the original appearances of the tumuli, while documentary evidence has enabled previously unknown tumuli to be located. This study explores how Ankara tumuli were transformed from the 1930s due to urban development. This is the period within which, along with other environmental elements, the tumuli exhibited original formal features that can be seen and contribute to the today's urban spatial structures. The theoretical framework presented by the current landscape and conservation discourses; and exemplary cases of preserved tumulus areas; were therefore investigated in this context. Departing from the extracts, the transformation of tumulustopography- urbanscape relations was evaluated through a proposed urban experience route among the still visible Western Tumuli.

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