DEATH ON THE MARGIN: AN URBAN HISTORY OF LAND WALLS CEMETERIES IN ISTANBUL

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2023-2-8

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Polat, Fatıma İkbal

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Communal cemeteries of Istanbul were located outside the city’s borders in each historical period from Antiquity to the Byzantine and Ottoman times. In the 5th century, with the advent of the Theodosian walls, the burial topography shifted towards outside these walls, while the former burial grounds in the city’s former Constantinian walls remained untouched. In Ottoman period, the land outside the Theodosian walls was established as the city’s legitimate burial place and continues its function to this day. This peripheral condition stands out as one of the greatest continuities in the city’s history. This thesis will study the extramural burial topography to investigate the reciprocal relation between the cemeteries and urban development. A close reading reveals that beyond marking the city’s physical borders, cemeteries define the ‘perceived’ borders of the city. The prominent cases of Mokius cemetery in the Byzantine period and the burial site of Eyüp in the Ottoman period exemplify this observation. By discussing the influence of the sacred sites, society’s changing attitudes towards death, social stratification, and the social phenomenon of desire for visibility on cemeteries’ development, how the marginal condition of cemeteries was formed in close connection to the city’s social constructions will be elucidated regarding the continuities and transformations between the Byzantine and Ottoman periods.

Subject Keywords

istanbul, constantinople, cemetery, periphery, urban development

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/101990

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

F. İ. Polat, “DEATH ON THE MARGIN: AN URBAN HISTORY OF LAND WALLS CEMETERIES IN ISTANBUL,” M.A. - Master of Arts, Middle East Technical University, 2023.