The Istanbul Research Institute in Istanbul's Beyoğlu district is hosting three events within the scope of the exhibition "Memories of Humankind: Stories from the Ottoman Manuscripts" in January. The institute started to host the exhibit on Oct. 17.

With Akif Ercihan Yerlioğlu's talk focusing on medicine and healing in Ottoman literature, Murat Güvenç's presentation on how to evaluate Bostancıbaşı notebooks with new techniques and the workshop "Healing Pages," in which old manuscript pages are recreated with natural inks, history enthusiasts will gain detailed and varied information on Ottoman manuscripts.

The events – organized within the scope of the exhibition "Memories of Humankind: Stories from the Ottoman Manuscripts" by the Istanbul Research Institute of Suna and the İnan Kıraç Foundation – continue with two talks and one workshop. The series of offerings, which will reveal many important details about Ottoman summer culture and daily life, begins Thursday, Jan. 9 with Akif Ercihan Yerlioğlu's presentation "Physicians Prescribe 500 Medicines for a Malady: Ottoman Manuscripts and Healing Culture in the Premodern Period." In his speech, Akif Ercihan Yerlioğlu will make use of the works in the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation's manuscript collection to discuss the basic features of Ottoman medicine and healing culture in the premodern period and the manuscripts produced within this framework.

In the second presentation, Murat Güvenç, the director of the Istanbul Research Institute of Kadir Has University, will share his scientific research project "Mapping Bostancıbaşı Notebooks," alongside project executives Ayşe Nur Akdal and Murat Tülek. In Bostancıbaşı notebooks, places belonging to the public and foundations – such as fortresses, military buildings, mosques, fountains, piers and docks, and even vacant land along the coastline of the Bosporus and Golden Horn coasts – were registered consecutively in the Ottoman period. During the event, scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 16, the speakers will present the recording structure of the project, spatialization and visualization opportunities for the evaluation of Bostancıbaşı notebooks with new techniques. In the second part of the presentation, how to code the concepts and terms used in Bostancıbaşı notebooks, how to categorize records coded at different levels and the geographical coding process of the records will be discussed.

New speeches within the scope of the exhibition "Memories of Humankind: Stories from the Ottoman Manuscripts" will continue in the second semester of the 2019-2020 academic year, bringing into question the different projections of Ottoman manuscript culture.

Talismanic tales from medicinal plants

The workshop "Healing Pages: Contemporary Manuscripts with Natural Inks," prepared for adults with inspiration from the exhibition "Memories of Humankind: Stories from the Ottoman Manuscripts," will be run by MILKist Founder Birnur Temel on Saturday, Jan. 11.

As part of the workshop, which focuses on recreating pages from old books, participants will create their own compositions by identifying the boundaries and schemes of these medicinal and natural inks after obtaining colors from vegetables, fruits and plants such as turmeric, beets, blackberries and purple cabbage.

Presentations at Arka Oda are free of charge. No booking is required, but seating is limited.