Kütahya

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Kütahya

Turkey

Also known as: Cotyaeum

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Kütahya, city, western Turkey. It lies along the Porsuk River, at the foot of a hill crowned by a ruined medieval castle.

Kütahya, known as Cotyaeum in antiquity, lay on the great road from the Marmara region to the Mesopotamian plains; the town flourished and declined according to the changing importance of the trade routes. As a medieval Byzantine town, it was taken by the Seljuq Turks toward the end of the 11th century. It functioned as the capital of the Germiyan Turkmen principality from 1302 to 1429 before its absorption into the Ottoman Empire. During the 16th century, Kütahya emerged as a centre of the Ottoman ceramic industry, supplying tiles and faience for mosques, churches, and other buildings in Turkey and parts of the Middle East. Its importance was eclipsed by the growth of neighbouring Eskişehir at the end of the 19th century, but the development of industries at Kütahya in the mid-20th century restored some of the town’s former importance.

The city’s old neighbourhoods have traditional Ottoman houses made of wood and stucco. Its industries now include sugar refining, tanning, nitrate processing, pottery and carpet making, and the manufacture of smoking pipes and other articles from meerschaum (silicate of magnesium), which is extracted in the vicinity. Kütahya is linked by road and railway with Eskişehir (40 miles [65 km] northeast) and Afyon Karahisar (56 miles [90 km] southeast). The area in which Kütahya is situated contains extensive areas of level or gently sloping agricultural land culminating in high mountain ridges to the north and west. The region’s products include cereals, fruits, and sugar beets. Large deposits of lignite are extensively worked at Tunçbilek and Değirmisaz, and stock raising is important. Pop. (2000) city, 166,665; (2013 est.) 224,898.

Tower Bridge over the Thames River in London, England. Opened in 1894. Remains an Important Traffic Route with 40,000 Crossings Every Day.

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İznik ware

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İznik ware

pottery

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İznik ware, in Islamic ceramics, a school of Turkish pottery making that flowered throughout the 16th and on into the 17th century. There may have been potteries at İznik, where there were deposits of suitable clay, as early as the 12th century, but it was not until the late 15th century that pottery making came into its own in Turkey. The chief centre of production became established in the city of İznik.

Early 16th-century İznik ware was influenced by the blue-and-white porcelain of Ming-dynasty China and by Persian wares. İznik ware was soft and sandy, being of grayish white clay covered with a usually white thin slip (a mixture of clay and water). Flat dishes were the commonest shapes, but bowls, jugs, and flower vases were also made. They were painted with stylized and symmetrical designs of flowers, leaves, and fruits, along with abstract linear motifs based on these natural forms and others such as fish scales. By the mid-16th century the range of colours used in the decoration had expanded from blue and white to include turquoise, several shades of green, and purple and black. Red had become a frequently used colour by the late 16th century. The quality of İznik ware declined in the 17th century, and by 1800 manufacture had ceased.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.