HAIR MOTIF GRAVESTONES IN SOUTH WEST TAURUS: THE CASE OF MUĞLA AND DENİZLİ

Abstract

Culture is the source of people's creativity. Mankind has inherited the history and traditions of previous generations. Accordingly, he created new creations by synthesizing the old and the new. Although these creations, which are formed at each point of the Turkish cultural geography, differ, they basically meet at the same point. Thus, it brings together people from the same cultural circle on a common ground. These creations can be in any area of life. However, this situation manifests itself more clearly in beliefs about death and afterlife. With the phenomenon of death, which can be thought of as a transition from the living to the world beyond, man begins to see and define the dead and his soul as a supernatural being. Onwards the actualization of death a body being down and the process of disembodiment of the spirit believed to live in that body has led to emergence of complex belief systems, thereby the emergence of different rituals to separate the soul from the body and this world. There are some practices be seen among the Turks performed before, during and after death. The flow of cultural information between people can be expected to take different forms. One of the element of cultural information flow is graves. Graves are used not only to bury the dead, but also as a means of self-expression. In this way, people can express their identity and personality to the environment. However, tombs are also a form of expression embodying the relationship between this world and the next world. Graves and tombstones transforms the toughts exist in an abstract way into a concrete form with the help of their construction properties and the various symbols on them. In this way, the existence of the deceased is revealed again, so that the soul can easily get used to the new situation with the metaphor of recreating his life. In this way, in a way, the harmony between life and death is tried to be expressed. Symbols, shapes, depictions, etc. made on tombstones, which have been symbolic codes since ancient times. provides him with holiness and at the same time, he provides immunity thanks to this holiness. Thus, human beings, who are in pain of death in the face of a loss or annihilation, add value to the eternity of life that exists after life, with these practices aimed at immortality, not death. Gravestones are not only a past for Turks, but also important in terms of carrying the spirit of that past. Beliefs and practices related to hair in Turkish culture are seen in all Turkish geographies from Siberia to Anatolia, from the earliest times to the present. In such a wide time and geography, the cultural continuity of the hair is remarkable in terms of showing its importance in Turkish culture. In this article, beliefs about hair in Turkish geography are discussed in general. In particular, evaluations were made about the hair motifs seen on some tombstones in Muğla and Denizli provinces and their place in Turkish culture.