Ahmed Fethi Pasha

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Ahmet Fethi Pascha (often also Fethi Ahmed Pascha ; * 1801 in Eyüp ; † February 13, 1858 in Istanbul ) was an Ottoman military, diplomat and founder of the first archaeological museum in Istanbul, the predecessor of today's Istanbul Archaeological Museum .

Ahmet Fethi was trained in the palace in Istanbul . He chose military service. He rose to major and later to colonel . In 1833 he became ambassador to the Russian court, from 1834 to 1836 in Vienna , then from 1838 to 1839 in Paris . He was the official representative of the Ottoman Empire at the coronation of Queen Victoria I in London. He was eventually replaced by the new, only 16 years old Sultan Abdülmecid I recalled. In Istanbul Ahmed Fethi married the half-sister of the Sultan Atiye Sultan (1824-1850), the daughter of Mahmud II , who had been a patron of Ahmet Fethi. Ahmed Fethi was promoted to general of the empire's artillery in 1845. At the same time, Trade Minister Ahmet Fethi was an entrepreneur who founded steel and porcelain factories.

Sketch of the Irish Church, 1877

In that year the collection began to take shape, and it was to be the seat of the Church of St. Irene . This happened under the protection of the army command. It is unclear when the first artifacts arrived there, but this must have happened between 1846 and 1850. Two collections were created in the atrium in front of the church, namely a collection of old weapons (Mecmua-i Asliha-i Atika) and one with archaeological finds (Mecmua-i Asar-i Atika). These were Hellenistic and Byzantine artifacts, the guarding and cleaning of which was the responsibility of the guards. These included vases, sculptures, busts, sarcophagi, bas-reliefs and inscriptions. This collection was only moved to the church after 1852. In the church there were other weapons, including the saber of Mehmed II or the swords of Skanderbeg and Timur , as Théophile Gautier reports, but also two-handed swords from the time of the Crusades or tambourines of the Janissaries .

As Philip Anton Déthier (1803–1881) notes, there was no inventory , nor was there a recognizable order. Ten years after the death of Ahmet Fethi Pascha, the Turkish inscriptions, which were supposed to record the provenance and meaning of the artefacts, were collected by the guards every time they were cleaned and then reassembled. A special permit was needed to gain access to the museum. Nevertheless, the museum was probably inspired by Western and Central European institutions of this kind. Ahmet Fethi had visited numerous museums in Vienna. The Allgemeine Theaterzeitung of November 4, 1835 noted in Vienna that "none of its art and teaching institutions, none of the technical and natural history collections have not been visited by the respected ambassador."

A catalog was only created in 1868 by Albert Dumont . He also had the objects sorted by epoch, and these departments were given their first showcases for Greco-Roman, early Christian and Byzantine artefacts. In 1869 the Englishman Edward Goold became the new director of the museum, who in 1871 published an expanded catalog of the numerous finds pouring in from the vast empire at the ruler's instigation.

literature

  • Pierina Francesca De Stales: Costruzione di un Museo: l'Archeologico di Istanbul (1847–1922) , tesi di laurea, Università Ca 'Foscari, Venice 2012, pp. 22–28 ( online ).
  • Tahsin Öz: Ahmet Fethi Paša ve Müzeler , in: Türk Tarih, Arkeologya ve Etnografya Dergisi 5 (1948) 1-6 ( online , PDF).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Mustafa-Reschid-Pascha, Ottoman statesman , in: Our time. Deutsche Revue der Gegenwart , Vol. 2, Brockhaus, 1858, pp. 171–180, here: p. 178.
  2. ↑ Wendy MK Shaw: Possessors and Possessed. Museums, Archeology, and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire , University of California Press, p. 47 f.
  3. ↑ Wendy MK Shaw: Possessors and Possessed. Museums, Archeology, and the Visualization of History in the Late Ottoman Empire , University of California Press, p. 48.
  4. ^ Théophile Gautier: Constantinople , Eugène Fasquelle Editeur, Paris 1910, p. 287 f.
  5. ↑ Philip Anton Dethier: Le Bosphore et Constantinople , Alfred Hölder, Wien 1,873th
  6. ↑ General theater newspaper. Original sheet for art, literature, music, fashion and social life, November 4, 1835 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  7. ^ Albert Dumont: Le Musée Sainte-Irène à Constantinople , in: Revue archéologique , Nouvelle Série 18 (1868) 237-263.
  8. ^ Edward Goold: Catalog explicative, historique et scientifique d'un certain nombre d'objets contenus dans le Musée Impérial de Constantinople fondé en 1869 sous le grand vésirat de Son Altesse A'ali Pacha , Zelich, Constantinople 1871.
personal data
SURNAME Ahmed Fethi Pasha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ahmet Fethi Pasha; Fethi Ahmed Pasha (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ottoman military, diplomat and founder of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum
DATE OF BIRTH 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Eyup
DATE OF DEATH February 13, 1858
Place of death Istanbul