| Meerschaum
is a word meaning sea foam, deriving from the vernacular |
| Turkish
term for this distinctive mineral, which is a form of magnesium |
| hydrosilicate.
The term sea foam reflects the fact that this creamy white |
| porous
stone floats for a while on water until it becomes saturated. The |
| meerschaum
carvers of Eskişehir, a province southeast of Istanbul, lend |
| marvellous
shapes to this seemingly insubstantial stone, which is also |
| described
as white gold. |
| The
story of meerschaum begins in the ground, where it is reached by |
| means
of mine shafts and laboriously dug out. At this st age the nuggets |
| of
meerschaum are shapeless muddy lumps, bearing no resemblance to |
| the
beautiful white substance with which most of us are familiar. Deposits |
| of
meerschaum are found elsewhere in Turkey and in other countries |
| around
the world, but that mined in Eskişehir, at the villages of Sepetçi, |
| Margı,
Çelikli, Söğütçük, Kozlubel, İmşehir, Gündüzler, Gökçeoğlu, |
| Türkmentokat
and Başören, is the finest quality of all. |
| |
| The
meerschaum may occur close to the surface or at depths of up to 300 |
| metres
or more. Vertical shafts between one and a half and two metres in |
| diameter
are dug, and horizontal galleries are excavated leading off the |
| shaft.
The fact that the meerschaum is found in scattered lumps, means |
| that
a great deal of earth must be moved in order to extract the mineral. |
| The
miners work by the light of carbide lamps in narrow galleries with |
| barely
room to swing their pickaxes. |
| Historical
evidence for the mining of meerschaum goes back three
|
| centuries,but
legend far further. It is related that one summer's day a
|
| shepherd
was seated beneath a tree carving a piece of wood, when he
|
| noticed
a mole pushing a white stone out of its tunnel. The shepherd
|
| reached
out to pick up the spherical stone, and the mole fled back
|
| underground.
After studying the stone for a while the shepherd began to
|
| chip
it with his knife, but as the blade made the first incision, he heard
a |
| voice
cry out in anguish, 'O, son of man, how could you do that to me!'
|
| The
astonished shepherd threw the stone down, and as it hit the ground,
|
| it
turned for an instant into a beautiful girl. Then it crumbled and
formed |
| once
more into a sphere and rolled back into the mole's tunnel. The
|
| shepherd
began to dig down, seeking the nymph of the stone. |
| Days
passed and eventually the villagers sent out a search party, which |
| found
him dead at the bottom of a narrow shaft leading deep into the |
| ground.
He was clasping a piece of meerschaum in his hand. From that |
| day
on the villagers associated meershcaum with the ill-fated love of
the |
| shepherd. |
|
|
| For
the meerschaum carvers this legend is more than a quaint tale. They
|
| regard
the mole who brought the first piece of the mineral out of the
|
| depths
of the earth as the patron saint of their craft. When the creamy
|
| coloured
meerschaum is damp it is as soft as soap, and it is this quality
|
| which
makes it so suited to the manufacture of pipes and cigarette holders,
|
| because
it absorbs nicotine with the same facility as it does water. Similarly,
|
| the
soft texture in this state allows it to be intricately carved into
belt |
| buckles,
prayer beads, necklaces, earrings and many other decorative
|
| objects.
Among the most popular pipe figures carved by the meerschaum
|
| craftsmen
are the heads of sultans with imposing turbans and curly beards.
|
|
|
| Until
the 1970s large quantities of Turkish meerschaum were exported in
the |
| raw
state, particularly to Austria, where it was made into pipes by Viennese |
| craftsmen
and sold all over Europe. In 1978 the export of raw meerschaum |
| was
prohibited so as to expand the craft of meerschaum carving in Eskişehir. |
| Bahaeddin
Güney, governor of Eskişehir between 1989 and 1993, made a |
| major
contribution to the meerschaum sector by initiating the International |
| Meerschaum
White Gold Festival, which includes a conference attended by |
| experts
in the field. |
| When
dry, meerschaum becomes extremely hard and durable. As the |
| craftsmen
give shape to the stone in their skilled hands, using tools which |
| they
make themselves, they perhaps aspire to create the visionary beauty |
| of
the meerschaum nymph for whom the shepherd lost his life. And their |
| exquisite
works of art inspire us to dream. |
| |
