Ecologies of being around/in Water in Ottoman Istanbul

• In Event: Extracting and Commodifying Aquatic Resources

Abstract

This paper attempts to rethink climate change and extractivism through the element of water in a locally defined early modern environment. Taking the depicted scene of the Great Dam (Büyük Bend or Bend-i Kebir weblink: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/collectie/SK-A-2008) in a copy of Jean Baptiste Vanmour’s (1671-1737) painting as its point of departure, it will explore the impacts of Little Ice Age climate fluctuations and environmental knowledge production in the landscapes of Ottoman Istanbul. Wherever literary and pictorial depictions of water are found in Ottoman Istanbul, there too, are the monumental aqueducts, dams, and water reservoirs. Numerous research has been done regarding the history and technology of these structures that used to supply the Ottoman capital. This paper, however, will address a lesser told history and trace the human and environmental costs involved. By focusing on the Great Dam and its adjacent imperial kiosk constructed in the countryside of Istanbul between 1722-1724, this paper sheds light on the material realities of the Little Ice Age and labor of the people, particularly those understudied populations – war captives, new immigrants, women, and children – who were involved day-to-day in their making, during and after completion, in a sense expanding the building construction in different stages. I propose that understanding urban water supply network and processes of knowledge production with a framework I refer to as ecological dissent has the potential to revive stories of diverse and wide-ranging historical individuals and communities and, in turn, everyday human-environment interaction in the face of preindustrial climate change, not traditionally considered in the intertwined histories of the sciences and urban water supply.

Author

• Deniz Karakas, Independent scholar