TENEDOS LOCAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER

SEASHELLS COLLECTION AND COMING TO TENEDOS

I am an incurable collector. I have always collected things starting from early childhood. Everything I have ever collected are still in existence in well organized, marked, safe packs. When I decided to give up my spear fishing hobby, but continued to snorkel diving, I started observing the underwater even more closely. That’s how my interest was initiated with these underwater jewels, seashells. My trips of seashell collection to Aegean and Mediterranean coasts started in 1988. Until 1991, in 12 trips and dives in 35 different locations between Saros Bay and Adana-Yumurtalik coast, I have collected 220 different type seashells. My first trip started from Saros Bay and continued through the coast to Canakkale from where I took a ferry to the island of Gokceada (Imros). Because of this fruitless and gloomy island trip, and the difficulties at long ferry lines, and furthermore seeing the old and beaten up military landing craft turned into a ferry at the Odunluk port, made me change my mind about visiting Bozcaada (Tenedos). In my continuing trips I have collected hundreds of seashells, either picking among the dead shells washed ashore, or otherwise searching underwater by diving under rocks, washing seaweeds, and sieving the sand up to 10 meter depths.

I used to take all my shells to a worldwide known collector Mr. İsmet R. TÜMTÜRK (1916-1998) to identify them together. During one of my visits while I was inspecting his collection, referring to the shell I was holding at that moment, “Trivia Songicola Monterosato, 1923”, he said there were only five known samples in the world. One was found in North African coast in a fossilized shape and currently in a museum in Italy, three found across Bodrum-Gumusluk coast and currently in the Istanbul University Collection, and the fifth was found by him near Assos that I was holding in my hand. This shell is smaller than a bean and at first look appears like an ordinary sample of its class. It has transverse ribs starting from mouth going towards the back. Beyond being the rarest of the rare, the purple spots at the two ends of the mouth was making it even more attractive for me.

I was completely wrapped up with my collection ambition. I had to have one of these shells. One week later, I came to Sokakagzi village of Assos coast for a three day trip on October 29, 1991, and searched the cold, dark blue waters of the Northern Aegean Sea diving over eight hours everyday. The last day, when the rays of the sun was about to disappear, and my hopes was fading, after hundreds of dives I noticed that one of the shells left in my sieve was the one I was looking for. I was a madly happy man 250-300 meters open in the sea at 10 meters deep water! I have found the most valuable piece of my collection. Later I went to same region two more time. I could not find a trace of another one. Maybe I had found the last sample of these shells. I have published this extremely important finding of mine in Cumhuriyet Science and Technology Magazine in September 1992.

Later I have oriented my research towards the published material about this subject. The book that had a list of all same class shells found in the world did not have this shell, nor I found any satisfying info or picture in any of the hundreds of books I have brought from abroad.

Prof. Muzaffer DEMİR, whom I have visited many times for seashell identification and have received my basic teaching about seashells, have told me that there is no such thing as “rare” in the nature, every living thing needs enough members of the male and female individuals, and the ones that I referred as rare was either from some habitat that I have not found yet, or possibly from very deep water. During that time I was in the process of establishing Istanbul Malacology Society, for the purpose of analyzing anatomical structure of seashells and making specie identifications. Almost everyday I was inspecting seashell collections of friends who wanted to join the Society. While going through the shells of a new member, Murat RECEVİK, along with several 1-2 mm shells that he could not identify, I saw two T. Spongicola shells. He said he did not know what they were and possibly I could find more of them in Tenedos where he found these. I was in shock. He had found the rarest of my collection in the only place I had not visited. Excited, I told him my story and everything I know about this shell. By then he was also in the feeling that what he had might really be a rare specie. He elaborately marked and packed them. But I was still quite shaken. The next morning, I met another member to be of the Society, Baki YOKES who was at Bosphorus University Underwater Sports Club. He greeted me with a sly smile on his face, holding the magazine where my finding about this shell was published in one hand, and a nylon bag full of T. Spongicola in the other, telling me in Tenedos I could find hundreds of these shells which he could not classify either.

For me the mystery of the rarity of this shell has disappeared, and Tenedos has appeared as a new target. Within a week in July of 1993 I visited the island with several friends from the Society and indeed found over 100 samples at every corner of the island. In the following years I have visited Tenedos several more times to collect samples of this shell but ended up going back with over 560 different type seashells. All of these shells have been identified by Robert G. Moolenbeek and Dr. Van der Linder of University of Amsterdam, Museum of Zoology, Malacology Department.

In 1997 trying to choose a place to buy a summer house, my wife and I traveled the Aegean and Mediterranean coast from Tenedos to Kaş. Then visited further places all the way back to Tenedos again. We bought our house in Tenedos which in time made us realize it was the best decision we have made in our lives. Whenever we wanted to get away from the troubles of Istanbul, Tenedos became our only port of shelter in summer and winter. I was in Tenedos when my wife İnci told me she was pregnant. Our daughter ADA was enjoying the sea of Tenedos at Ayazma when she was only 45 days old, recommended by our doctor. In 2004, my 1-year old son EGE was tasting for the first time Çavuş grapes from our own vineyard.

We met Panayot Ovali and his wife Filo in Tenedos who have become our dearest friends, thought us how to cook octopus grill and salad, stuffed kalamari, and delicious sinarit fish. They were the last Greek couple got married in Tenedos but when their son Dimitri reached school age, they had to move to Athens to provide better education for him.

I did not have any previous information about the history of Tenedos, but after a little search I found that this little island was buried in a rich history. My collection habit that I could not restrain, this time diverted me to collect cultural items of the history of Tenedos and the Tenedians. Slowly growing collection and the cultural accumulation behind each item made me learn the history of Tenedos in more detail. As I continued to research the Ottoman Oriental Commerce Annuals, Year-Books, Ottoman Archives of the Prime Ministry, old travel books, quite a bit of a collection of items accumulated. When I started to purchase the first engravings, occupation period postcards, my aim in 1999 was to prepare a book of this collection. By 2003 the collection grew to a size that I have decided to exhibit in a museum. And now in 2005, my new target is to establish a Tenedos Information and Documentation Center in a separate building where all media transformed into digital environment, with a library, meeting room, and computerized study rooms.

With its collection of items and the Verbal History Study I believe I have founded a museum that will establish the memory of Tenedos when viewed from a window of history 100-150 years later. I take pleasure meeting anybody who believes in the same and would like to contribute to this collection.