The Topkapı Palace Museum is presenting the first harem exhibition in Turkey. The museum’s director, İlber Ortaylı, says the exhibition’s purpose is to correct misinformation about the imperial harem as opposed to misrepresentations. ‘The harem was a center of education for concubines,’ he says.
What was the syllabus? Did it grant a diploma of "Doctor of Philosophy in Concubine Sciences"? I am always interested in learning, may be I could attend.
7 comments:
Did they all sit around naked or was this a European artist's fevered imagination?
The harem was less than a university but perhaps more than a brothel.
K
I have seen it, actually.
They taught promisuous realism.
Anon.
The painting is from the times that there were no internet porn sites. BTW, the scene shows a music class.
Very little hard fact is known about the harems. They were sealed off from the world, those who lived there did not write historical accounts, and so it is all left to the imagination. It is a therefore a blank canvas upon which can be projected the fantasies of each era. ...to Victorian men, it was filled with pale naked available females, to post Modern feminists it was a university where women were empowered, etc.
I would be surprised if the women, who came from all kinds of backgrounds, didn't come up with something of the sort to pass the time.
I think what was being alluded to is that the concubines had to be educated in courtly manners. The mother of the Sultan had a powerful position. These girls started out as slave girls from the provinces and some ended up as Queens. They had to learn somewhere along the way. But I doubt that algebra or feminist studies were on the curriculum.
K
The harem's function as a school of manners was rather secondary of its main purpose, which was to satisfy the sexual needs of the ruler. There was also an additional function of producing a male heir, but you dont need hundreds of virgins for that. I mean former virgins.
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