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Hi, Reader!

Welcome back to my newsletter! Starting with this issue, and over the next few episodes, I’d like to share some experiences from my trip to Turkey with you. But first, let me start with a few news:

The Exhibit is On

I have spent 8 hours installing my exhibition "A small number, but larger than zero". Lining up 28 pieces is no small task. The reception will be this Saturday 2-4PM at YWCA Greenwich. The first batch of the photo book has also arrived. I'd love to see you there, to hear your thoughts, and to share more about the stories behind the work.

ND and TIFA

News came back from the competition front. My recent work from Greece and Japan received 6 Honorable Mentions, 4 from ND Awards, 2 from Tokyo International Foto Awards:

• Morning Town, ND(Fine Art/Landscape)​
• Athens Night Portrait, ND(Architecture/Cityscape)​
• Crossing(Series), ND(People/Street)​
• Mount Fuji No.3, TIFA(Fine Art/Landscape)​
• Three Spotlights, ND(People/Street), TIFA(Special/Street)​

While I had hoped for a stronger result, I am still grateful for the recognition. It reminds me how far I have come, from almost total ignorance to be determined about the kind of visuals I seek.

Please allow me to share a photo a friend recently sent me. It was taken 20 years ago at an industry conference after-party:

Yes, that really is me in a suit and tie, with hair that was still perfectly black and not a hint of grey. Most of the people in this image remained in the IT world, while I somehow wandered off in a totally different direction.

The Trip

On this trip I drove about 1100 miles in 6 days. Among the five destinations, the most important one for me was Hisarlık, believed by many to be the site of Homeric Troy.

The site, including the museum and ruins, takes only one or two hours to visit, yet the drive from Istanbul is at least six hours. This is why most tours pair it with Gallipoli or Ephesus. I had read many reviews saying Troy is underwhelming, and from a photographic point of view it is almost impossible to produce striking images there. It is, after all, a small hill of ruins. Still, the best way to understand a place is to stand there yourself, just as the best way to enjoy music is to be in a concert hall, hearing the real instruments and feeling the vibrations with your own body.

I was not disappointed.

The site is far more impressive than I had expected. Its area is close to Mycenae, but it feels more spacious, as Mycenae spreads over a steep hill. The Hisarlık mound once rose 20 meters high, the result of nearly 4,000 years of continuous human habitation.

Of all the Mycenaean civilization sites I have visited, Knossos is undoubtedly the most splendid, however an illusion created by the reconstructions. Mycenae feels like a mountain bandit’s lair, while Troy’s surroundings are isolated and remote, hardly suited to support a large city. None of them matches the scale of Egypt’s pyramids or the palaces of Mesopotamia and Persia. Yet they are equally or more fascinating, because seeing them reminds you the heroes and plots in the Homeric songs, the most influential literature of the ancient west.

Generations of archaeologists, from Schliemann to Evans and Blegen, devoted their lives to answering the Homeric Question: how much of the Homeric poems is historically true? In the process, they may have caused irreparable damage, yet they succeeded in showing the world that myth can contain a plausible historical core.

From my limited study of the research, I believe the Homeric epics are products of oral tradition. They contain elements of historical fact, yet they are, after all, works of literature: people and places are fluid. A war lasting ten years and involving 1,186 greek ships is surely an exaggeration by the poet(s). The only event of that scale might be the Mycenaean conquest of Minoan Crete around 1450 BC, roughly 200 years before the proposed time of the Trojan War. Maybe the faint memory of this conquest was later relocated to a remote coastal town called Ilion.

Standing on the mound at Hisarlık, I could sense the weight of these centuries-old stories and imagine how myth and memory merged to create the epic tales we still know today.

I also find it interesting that the Homeric Question has a parallel in ancient China. It was not until the 1930s excavation at Anyang that the existence of the Shang Dynasty, roughly contemporaneous as the Homeric Troy, was confirmed through archaeological evidence. Scholars discovered an almost identical king list inscribed on oracle bones. Yet the legendary Xia Dynasty and the kings before it remain a largely unresolved mystery.

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I hope you enjoy my accounts from Troy. In the next episode, let me take you for a ride on a hot air balloon to see the magical Pamukkale. Until then, take care!

Sincerely,

Zili

​windinsilence.com​