Hatay

As in many branches of folklore, the music of the dances is very rich. It is not possible in this section of the research to examine all the music of the area.

The traditional instruments of the area are the davul (bass drum), zurna (shawm) and argın. Today, however, many of our folk instruments accompany folk dance groups. Below is information on the argın, along with the notation of some of the area's folk dance tunes and drum strokes.

HANDICRAFTS

Art and works of art have been valued in very different ways from age to age and society to society, yet they have existed throughout human history.

The Antakya–Syria–Palestine area is one of the places in the world where glass was first made. Many glass works and ornaments were produced in the Phoenician, Cilician and Roman periods. In and around Antakya, the art of blowing green glass, typical of this area, became highly developed, with production by melting down and recycling old glass. There are many glass masters in Antakya, and some have joined together to open workshops and businesses.

We see that silkworm rearing, once practised in almost every home in most villages around Samandağ and Harbiye, is now dying out. As silk production from silkworm cocoons in Hatay passes into history, some families who carry it on as their fathers' trade are trying to keep it alive and introduce it to Türkiye. Silk fabric is very strong and durable. It is used in the coating of the nose of supersonic Concorde aircraft and in bulletproof vests. Silk, used until recently only in the clothing industry, has thus also entered the arms industry. It lasts 20 years. In Hatay, weaving is done on wooden looms, with the warp threads stretched by tying wooden sticks and pebbles to their ends. Sheets, bedspreads and mosquito nets are usually woven on these looms.

Weaving thread is one thing, but weaving straw is something else entirely… especially with wheat and rye stalks. The straw products most popular with domestic and foreign tourists are bags, plates, cirem, panels, half-plates and boats. The best-known name keeping this tradition alive in Hatay is Niyazi KÖLEOĞLU.

Şıh Ali and his children, who keep the art of sculpture alive in Hatay, usually make statues of gods and goddesses in black stone. These stone carvers, travelling over bridges not between generations but between civilisations, bring stones to life by carving only what they see and imagine, without any training, and still carry on their art through their own efforts.

One of those carrying the coins of Harbiye, whose rich history has hosted many civilisations, into the present is İbrahim (Mehmetoğlu) Sünel. Harbiye's history drew the artist to this work. (Daphne) Harbiye has hosted a very rich culture. He produces tourist souvenirs modelled on the coins of Greece, Rome, the Ottomans and all the known civilisations that lived in Anatolia. Bronze, silver and gold are used to make the coins. Seeing his painstaking handwork take shape as a finished piece gives the artist joy.

Soap is a product, generally used for cleaning, obtained when the fatty acids of plant and animal fats react with alkalis. Laurel oil (Oleum Lauri), obtained from the fruit (Fructus Lauri) and leaves of the laurel tree, is used in soap making and medicine. Because the fruit is part of the composition of Fiorivente alcoholate, laurel oil is used as a stomach remedy, a sudorific and a diuretic, and also in treating rheumatic and skin diseases; in recent years the oil and leaves have been exported abroad.

According to recent research in the Hatay region, the annual laurel oil reserve under normal climate conditions is between 150 and 250 tonnes. There is no industrial plant that extracts laurel oil. Villagers extract the oil by simple methods, boiling it for 8–12 hours. Soap is produced with these oils and additives.

Woodcarving:

Carving is the art of producing a design drawn on wood by cutting away the unwanted parts with special cutting tools. It is a thousand-year-old tradition. The best-known master keeping the woodcarving tradition alive in Hatay is Ali ALTUN.

Pyrography:

Pyrography, also known as “dağlama resim”, is an art done as a shading technique, especially on materials such as wooden boards, by burning and working them with hot metal pens (soldering irons with various tips). The best-known masters of pyrography in Hatay are Naim and Zeynep GÜLBOL.

FOLK SONGS AND FOLK INSTRUMENTS

The traditional instruments of the area are the davul (bass drum), zurna (shawm) and argın. Today, however, many of our folk instruments accompany folk dance groups.

Zanbır (argın): a part of our cultural heritage on the verge of disappearing. The last known player of the zanbır in Hatay is Selim ASLANYÜREK. The zanbır is an instrument made of bone.

Ney: The ney, made from a knotted reed called kargı and with roots going back to the Sumerians, is a wind instrument. Apart from the banks of the Nile, the region where the best-quality reeds in the world grow is the banks of the Asi (Orontes) River in Hatay's Samandağ district. Well-known ney makers and players in Hatay are İzzet ÖZKAN and Cemil KAHİLOĞULLARI.

LOCAL COSTUMES

Clothing has been important for as long as humankind has existed. In the early 20th century, hand embroidery and silk weaving influenced clothing. Later, as technology developed, machine embroidery and cotton fabrics took their place. Silk is still woven and used today in Samandağ and Harbiye.

The Hatay area is one of the oldest settlement centres in Anatolia. Because of its mild climate, which made life easier, and its fertile soils, the history of settlement here reaches back to the Middle Paleolithic, which began around 100,000 BC.

Another feature that made Hatay attractive and kept it open to migration in every period of history is that it lies where the roads linking Anatolia via Çukurova to Syria and Palestine meet. The best ports for reaching the Mediterranean from Mesopotamia are also in the Hatay area.

The earliest information on the origin of the name Hatay dates to the period of the Neo-Hittite principalities, which began around 1200 BC. In this period the Hittite principalities in the Amik Plain are known to have united under the name Kingdom of Hattena, and the name Hatay is thought to come from this. Atatürk gave the area this name in 1936. The capital of the Kingdom of Hattena was the settlement whose remains are found at Kanula (Çatalhöyük), near today's Kırıkhan.

Antakya, the central district of Hatay, was named Antiokheia in 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, after his father Antiochus.

Source: http://www.hatay.gov.tr/tarih

Hatay can be reached by flights from Istanbul and Ankara and by train from Mersin. Bus companies from every region of Türkiye also run direct services to the city.

Citrus fruit is one of Hatay's most important sources of income. Olive growing is also widespread, and Altınözü stands out for olive production. Field crops are grown on about 63% of the farmland.

In industry, İskenderun Demir Çelik (İsdemir), founded in the 1970s, is Türkiye's third iron and steel plant. The province has 8 organised industrial zones. İskenderun Port is one of Türkiye's major ports.

The earthquakes of 6 February 2023 hit Hatay hard; Antakya, Kırıkhan and Defne were the worst-affected districts. The province's population fell from 1,686,043 in 2022 to 1,544,640 in 2023.