As well as being a centre for trade, the bazaar also played an important role in bringing the local community together and became a place for meeting and socialising; a modern example is shown in SOURCE5 .
SOURCE5 a. The Mahmutpas¸ a Kapısı gate of the Kapalıçars¸ ı, the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul b. The Kapalıçars¸ ı in Istanbul
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SkillBuilder discussion Historical questions 1. Work with a partner to identify the architectural features in the images of the Kapalıçars¸ ı.
2. How did the location and structure of the Kapalıçars¸ ı contribute to its role in trade and community life in Istanbul? 3. In what ways do you think the Kapalıçars¸ ı has evolved over time, and what factors have influenced these changes?
DID YOU KNOW? The Kapalıçars¸ ı, which still operates today, contains more than 4000 shops. The largest shopping centre in Australia, Chadstone Shopping Centre in Melbourne, contains over 550 shops. At the heart of a bazaar was the bedestan . This was a stone building with a domed roof. The bedestan had doors that could be locked at night; this ensured the safe storage of luxury goods such as precious metals, gems and silk. SOURCE6 An account of a bedestan in Bursa, written by Turkish traveller Evliya Efendi (1611–1682), from Joseph von Hammer’s translation of Narrative of travels on Europe, Asia and Africa in the Seventeenth Century by Evliya Efendi, London, 1855, p. 12 The Bedestan is a large building with four iron gates secured with iron chains; its cupola is supported by strong columns. It contains three hundred shops in each of which merchants reside, who are as rich as the kings of Egypt. The market of the goldsmiths is outside the Bedestan, and separate from it; the shops are all of stone. There are also the markets of the tailors, cotton-beaters, cap makers, thread merchants, drapers, linen merchants, cable merchants, and that called the market of the bride, where essence of roses, musk, ambergris, etc are sold.
Jacaranda Humanities Alive 8 Victorian Curriculum Third Edition
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