Paleontoloji Tarihi

HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY, PART I
A SHORT HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY, PART I:

FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE COLLAPSE OF
OTTOMAN TURKEY
VOLKAN SARIGÜL
Unaffiliated, Çankaya 06000, Ankara/TURKEY

volkansaurus@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Modern paleontology in Turkey appeared in the early nineteenth century, together with the
first modern geological studies. The fossils collected in these studies were initially used to
establish biostratigraphy and to make the first geological maps of the country.
Paleontologists were involved in these studies from the beginning; the earliest
identifications of new animal and plant taxa from Turkey occurred in the same century
along with the detailed descriptions of the rich and diverse Turkish fossil record. Aside
from the academic studies, some paleontologists also took part in the economic side by
contributing to stratigraphic analysis of coal beds or participating in petroleum exploration.
Earth Sciences History All these pioneering works on the geology and paleontology of Turkey were done by
Vol. 40, No. 1, 2021 foreigners; however, the outcomes of this newly introduced science were quickly
pp. 158–201 appreciated by Ottoman Turkey. During the middle of the nineteenth century, the first text
mentioning geological processes was written by the head scholar of the Imperial School of
Military Engineering, while the first geology classes began to be taught under the Imperial
Medical School in Istanbul, in which the first natural history collection was also
established. Unfortunately, not a single original study in paleontology was produced by
Ottoman citizens, with the notable exception of an Austrian immigrant of Hungarian
descent, possibly because of a lack of a real interest in earth sciences.
Keywords: Paleontology, fossil, natural history, geology, Ottoman, Turkey.

doi: 10.17704/1944-6187-40.1.158
1. INTRODUCTION
The notion that a fossil is a petrified remnant of an organism can be traced back to antiquity, as
exemplified in the views of Anaximander and Xenophanes who were born on the Aegean coast of
modern-day Turkey. Vertebrate and invertebrate fossils in particular were recognized in various
parts of Anatolia during antiquity (e.g., de Tchihatcheff 1866–1869; Kirk and Raven 1957;
Desmond 1975); however, the organic origin of fossils was debated among natural philosophers
throughout the Mediterranean region for many centuries. Meanwhile, the Turks began to settle
permanently in Anatolia at the end of the eleventh century, and this part of the world was called
‘the land of Turks’, or Turkey, as of the twelfth century (Ortaylı 2015). The Ottoman period of
Turkey started in the fourteenth century under the rule of the Ottoman dynasty which stayed in
power for more than 600 years. The vast territories of Ottoman Turkey included modern-day
Turkey as well as many other countries in eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the
Caucasus (Figure 1).
As in antiquity, fossil occurrences were noted within the lands of Ottoman Turkey. For
example, Evliya Çelebi (1611–1683(?)), the most celebrated traveler of the Ottoman Era,
interpreted the petrified mollusk shells found in the northern part of Crimea as sea animals that
lived in the past and he concluded that the Black Sea had once reached to that particular area (e.g.,
Şengör 2007). Unfortunately, the keen observations of Evliya Çelebi and others did not establish a
basis for paleontology in Turkey, since the disciplines related to natural philosophy, which
established the core of the modern natural sciences, were gradually disregarded in the Ottoman
education system. As a result, Ottoman Turkey did not contribute to the emergence of modern
geology and paleontology during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and all the pioneering
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Figure 1. Territories of Ottoman Turkey in 1801, including the tributary states (after Miller 1913). Boundaries of the
modern Republic of Turkey are displayed with dashed lines.
work on paleontology in Turkey was done by foreign geologists and naturalists, as will be detailed
below. Only a few Ottoman citizens contributed to geology and paleontology in Turkey, directly
or indirectly, and they were always men of higher social rank who held titles like Pasha (or Paşa),
Efendi or Bey (a surname law did not take effect until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey).
In this paper, I will introduce the important contributions to Turkish paleontology that
occurred during the nineteenth and earliest twentieth centuries, including the first geological
reports, the first modern geological maps based on paleontology and biostratigraphy, the new fossil
taxa defined from Turkey, the first courses and writings on earth sciences, the foundation of the
first natural history museum, and also the origins of coal mining and petroleum exploration. As
modern paleontology was born as a branch of geology, the story of paleontology here has naturally
to be told in tandem with the history of geology. This work will be the first attempt to give a
comprehensive account of the history of paleontology in Ottoman Turkey, since earlier accounts
cited only a few important works in paleontology as a part of the abstracts on the history of geology
in Turkey (e.g., Ketin 1979, Şengör 2007), or they focused only on a particular subject (e.g.,
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Erguvanlı 1979, Şengör 2010). The continuation of this account during the time of the Republic of
Turkey will be told elsewhere.
2. MILESTONES IN PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY DURING THE NINETEENTH

AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURIES
The nineteenth century was a time when foreign geologists came to explore the lands of Ottoman
Turkey, mostly for practical reasons such as prospecting for coal, iron and petroleum. During these
activities, they came across various fossils and these were the first fossils to be identified
scientifically. Therefore, it can be safely inferred that geology gave birth to paleontology in Turkey.
2.1. The first geological map displaying territory in Turkey (1801)
The path leading to understanding the geology of Turkey in the modern sense began with the
resolution of stratigraphic relations which was first attempted by the French naturalist Guillaume
Antoine Olivier (1756–1814) (Figure 2). Olivier took a long journey to the lands of Ottoman
Turkey and Qajar Iran in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and gathered his extensive
observations on landscape, climate, biota, political events, social structure and lifestyle into six
volumes, enhanced by beautifully illustrated plates (Olivier 1801, 1804, 1807). In the first volume
(1801) that mainly concerns Istanbul (Constantinople at the time) and its environs, he provided the
earliest geological description of the Bosporus area together with a very basic geological map based
solely on lithology, which distinguished old stratified rocks (‘Terrain Schisteux’) in the southern
part and volcanic rocks (‘Terrain Volcanique’) in the northern part (Figure 2). This map is not only
the first geological map of a territory within Turkey, but it is also one of the earliest geological
maps in history (see Şengör 2007), produced even before the first geological map of England by
William Smith (1769–1839) and the first geological map of France by Georges Cuvier (1769–
1832) and Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847).
Figure 2. The portrait of Guillaume Antoine Olivier (from Gallica – the National Library of France), and his very basic
geological map of the Bosporus, displaying old sedimentary rocks and volcanic rocks (after Olivier 1801).
Some of Olivier’s observations are of importance in a paleontological context. As did earlier

philosophers and travelers, Olivier recognized fossils of various invertebrate groups such as
bivalves, brachiopods and echinoderms from various places within Ottoman Turkey during his
journey (Olivier 1801, 1804, 1807; Boué 1836). Moreover, he was the first to mention taxonomic
names of some Plio-Quaternary mollusks (e.g. Ostrea, Venus, Buccinum) from the shores of the
Dardanelles, taxon ranges of which reach into modern times (Olivier 1804). Moreover, he noted
some coal mines on the Black Sea coast of Istanbul and also in Rodosto (now Tekirdağ) and nearby
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Érécli (now Marmara Ereğlisi) on the southern Marmara coast (Figure 1), which were long known
by the locals (Olivier 1801). He noticed parts of fossil plants in a coal mine he visited on the Black
Sea coast of Istanbul which was exploited by local Armenians. As will be detailed below, these
plant fossils would be evaluated several decades later. Thus, the account of Olivier aroused interest
in Turkish territories and inspired many geologists, paleontologists and other naturalists.
2.2. Introduction of modern paleontology to Turkey in the 1830s and 1840s, and the first modern
geological maps
The map by Olivier (1801) obviously lacked fossil data but later studies which used the principle
of faunal succession, resulted in the first modern geological maps based on Turkish biostratigraphy
in the late 1830s. In this period, exquisite maps and reports by two British geologists, Hugh Edwin
Strickland (1811–1853) and William John Hamilton (1805–1867), were completed (Figure 3).
These two early students of Turkish geology traveled to the city of Izmir (Smyrna at the time) and
spent the winter of 1835–1836 there. The two geologists engaged in extensive fieldwork around
the Bay of Izmir during November and December of 1835, however, Hamilton was indisposed
during January and early February. In this interval, Strickland set off from Izmir in the company of
Colonel Mackintosh for a trip that lasted about two weeks during which they explored the vicinity
of the cities of Izmir and Aydın. Upon his return to Izmir, Strickland and Hamilton then departed
by steamer and arrived in Istanbul in late February 1836. Even though their stay was short, they
were able to examine the geology of the city among other activities such as sightseeing and
Strickland’s efforts to collect some water birds. The two companions left Istanbul on 22 March
1836; first they sailed to Mudanya, on the Marmara coast of modern Bursa Province, instead of
going around Iznik (Nicomedia) in order to save time, but the rest of the journey was carried out
by overland travel towards the south (Figure 1). After visiting the city center of Bursa, they passed
through various places that currently fall within the borders of modern-day Kütahya, Uşak and
Manisa provinces (Figure 1). On 13 April, Strickland left Hamilton and took the northern route to
see Magnesia (the center of today’s Manisa Province) while Hamilton continued to move westward.
Both men finally met a day later in Izmir. On 23 April, they bade farewell to each other; Strickland
started to make his way back to England from the port of Izmir while Hamilton continued his travels
in Anatolia, but this time traveling towards east. Details of the Strickland’s campaign were vividly
recounted in his memoirs published in 1858, shortly after his unexpectedly early death, by Sir
William Jardine (1800–1871), a Scottish noble and naturalist and also his father-in-law. On the
other hand, Hamilton covered most of the Black Sea coast, Eastern and Central Anatolia, and even
reached the modern-day Turkish-Armenian border in a trip lasting slightly longer than a year.
Hamilton’s extensive observations and notes on the geology of Anatolia turned into the iconic book
Asia Minor in 1842, including the joint travels with Strickland.
In 1836 and 1837, Strickland presented a series of papers at meetings of the Geological
Society of London. In a paper read on 2 November 1836, Strickland presented a general sketch of
the geology and paleontology of the western part of Anatolia and introduced different rock
formations including some magmatic and metamorphic rocks as well as various sedimentary units,
namely the ‘Silurian rocks’ of Istanbul, the ‘Hippurite limestone’ which is widely distributed along
the Aegean coast, several Tertiary lacustrine and marine deposits, and finally the recent volcanics
of Kula (Catacecaumene) and travertines that occurred between Uludağ (Mount Olympus) and
Bursa (Strickland 1836a). In his later papers, Strickland displayed a particular interest in the
geology of Istanbul and Izmir. A quadripartite stratigraphy was presented for Istanbul on 30
November 1836, that consisted of ‘Silurian schists and limestones’, igneous rocks formed mainly
on the Black Sea coast, Tertiary rocks exposed along the Marmara coast of the European side and
‘ancient alluvium’ (Strickland 1836b, 1836c). Similarly, another quadripartite stratigraphy was
established for Izmir; comprising ‘micaceous schist and marble’, ‘Hippurite limestone and greenish
schist’, Tertiary lacustrine limestone and marl, and lastly ‘trachytic rocks’ (Strickland 1837a,
1837b). A geological map for Izmir was produced by Strickland (Figure 4), but the geologic
framework of Istanbul was displayed by only a few cross sections. Nevertheless, a geological map
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of Istanbul was published soon after by Édouard de Verneuil (1837), mainly based on the
descriptions of Strickland and Hamilton (Figure 5).
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Figure 3. Portraits of the paleontologists and other naturalists who contributed to the paleontology in Turkey during the
nineteenth century, given in the order of appearance in the text: Hugh Edwin Strickland (after Jardine 1858); William
John Hamilton (from the archives of the Geological Society); Ami Boué (from Wikimedia Commons); Édouard de
Verneuil (after Babin 2005); Auguste Viquesnel (after Gaudant 1985); William Francis Ainsworth (from Gallica – the
National Library of France); Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt (from Wikimedia Commons); Edward Forbes (after Reeve
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1855); Warington Wilkinson Smyth (from the National Library of Wales); Vicomte d'Archiac (from Gallica – the National
Library of France); Roderick Impey Murchison (after Benton et al. 2017); James de Carle Sowerby (from the Smithsonian
Institution Libraries); Pierre Alexandrowitsch de Tchihatcheff (from Gallica – the National Library of France); Xavier
Hommaire de Hell (from the Austrian National Library); Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny (after d’Orbigny 1847a); Paul
Henri Fischer (after Regelsperger 1894); Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart (Library of the National Museum of Natural
History, Paris); Achille Valenciennes (Library of the National Museum of Natural History, Paris); William Kenneth
Loftus (after Watson 1897); Jean Albert Gaudry (from Gallica – the National Library of France); Frank Calvert (after
Allen 1995); Melchior Neumayr (from the Austrian National Library); Franz Toula (after Rosiwal 1920); Abdullah Bey
(after List et al. 1998); İbrahim Lütfi Pasha (after Erguvanlı 1980); Halil Edhem Eldem (after Erguvanlı 1982); İbrahim
Edhem Pasha (after Koçu 1968); Franz Joseph Andreas Nicolaus Unger; Henry Skeffington Poole (from the Nova Scotia
Archives, Canada); Robert Etheridge (after Woodward 1904); Charles René Zeiller (after Taylor et al. 2009); Joseph
Henri Ferdinand Douvillé (after Augé 1907). No portraits were found for Jules Haime, William Ridley Swan, Ali Fethi
Efendi, Gustav Schlehan, Georges Ralli and Miltiades Armas.
Meanwhile, Hamilton came back to Izmir on 25 August 1837 for the last time, after
concluding his final trip to Anatolia, and left for England as well. In a paper read on 21 February
1838, he presented the geological features of the area between the great salt lake (now called Lake
Tuz) and Caesarea (now Kayseri) in Central Anatolia (Hamilton 1838a, 1838b). In this study,
Hamilton primarily concentrated on volcanic rocks of Mount Hasan and Mount Erciyes (Argaeus),
but he also described exposed granites, the setting of Lake Tuz, and limestones and clastics
deposited in the area (Figure 6). Hamilton and Strickland’s final and more comprehensive report
on the geology of the western part of the Anatolia was published in 1841, including a plate with
the cited cities, mountains and lakes of western Anatolia, another plate illustrating the geological
map of Kula, and a final plate displaying various sections from western Anatolia.
The works of Strickland and Hamilton represent a very important step in the development
of geology and paleontology in Turkey in several ways. In particular, the geology of Anatolia was
revealed in detail for the first time, even though the geological terminology used in the early 1800s
can be quite confusing when compared to modern counterparts. Taking Strickland’s viewpoint for
Istanbul, the ‘Silurian rocks’ were used to replace former nomenclature of ‘Transition rocks’ which
referred to the pre-Carboniferous strata (e.g., Rudwick 1985, p. 57). This rock sequence now
corresponds essentially to the transgressive Paleozoic sequence of Istanbul, especially to the
Devonian-Carboniferous layers exposed along the Bosporus (e.g., Özgül 2012) (Figure 5).
Furthermore, the igneous rocks of Istanbul turned out to be different in origin and age, as
exemplified by the Permian Sancaktepe Granite, Late Cretaceous Çavuşbaşı granodiorite and
coeval mafic volcanics at the Black Sea coast (e.g., Yılmaz-Şahin et al. 2007; Özgül 2012) (Figure
5). It is unclear what Strickland meant by the ‘ancient alluvium’; these rocks may partially or totally
represent the post-Paleozoic cover of Istanbul (Figure 5). In turn, the ‘schistose’ rocks and the
‘Hippurite limestone’ of Izmir are now regarded as the ‘schist mantle’ of the Menderes Massif, a
large metamorphic body resulting from the culmination of the Alpide orogenic phase in Turkey
(e.g., Şengör et al. 1984), and as the Bornova Flysch, a chaotically deformed uppermost
Cretaceous-Paleocene graywacke and shale unit containing blocks of Mesozoic volcanic rocks,
cherts and limestones (e.g., Erdoğan 1990; Okay and Altıner 2007), respectively (Figure 4). The
Tertiary sediments and the ‘trachytic rocks’ correspond to Miocene terrestrial deposits and
volcanics, respectively (e.g., Uzel et al. 2012, figure 2 and references therein) (Figure 4).
Hamilton’s granites on the east coast of Lake Tuz happen to be Cretaceous granitoids (e.g., Whitney
et al. 2001), Mount Hasan and Mount Erciyes belong to a particular volcanic region called the
Central Anatolian Volcanic Province (or Cappadocian Volcanic Province) formed by Neogene and
Quaternary volcanism (e.g., Toprak and Göncüoğlu 1993), and the mentioned siliciclastic and
carbonate sediments are Tertiary (mostly Neogene) terrestrial deposits (Figure 6).
Moreover, Strickland and Hamilton can be credited for being the first geologists to publish
scientifically described fossils from Turkey. These fossils helped to distinguish particular strata
and enabled the dating of the whole unit. Dating the ‘Terrain Schisteux’ of Olivier (1801) became
possible only after fossils were obtained from this rock unit. Strickland (1836c) provided a list of
taxa including brachiopods (Spirifer, Producta, Terebratula, Atrypa, Orthis), cnidarians
(Cyathophyllum, Favosites), a trilobite (Asaphus) and some crinoid fragments from Arnavutköy
and Yûşa Tepesi (Giant’s Hill) (Figure 5). Identification of almost all these fossils remained at the
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Figure 4. The geological map of Izmir and the surrounding area by Strickland (1837b, cross sections are omitted),
compared to a simplified version of a modern geological map by Uzel and colleagues (2012). Here, the modern map is
colored according to that of Strickland’s and numbered to provide a better visualization of the similarities. Strickland’s
five-fold distinction of schists (dark blue, no. 1), ‘Hippurite limestone’ (green, no. 2), terrestrial deposits (yellow, no. 3),
volcanic rocks (pink, no. 4) and alluvium (blue, no. 5), was quite accurate and confirmed by recent works which also
suggest that modern day Izmir and surroundings are under an extensional tectonic regime, together with the rest of the
western Anatolia.
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Figure 5. Edouard de Verneuil’s 1837 map of Bosporus, compared to a simplified version of a modern geological map by
Türkecan and Yurtsever (2002) and Özgül (2012). ‘Terrain Trachytique’ (no. 1), ‘Terrain Silurien et Cambrien’ (no. 2)
and ‘Terrain Tertiaire’ (no. 3) of de Verneuil were predominantly based on the works of Strickland and Hamilton
(Strickland 1836a, 1836b, 1836c, 1837a, 1837b). These units now correspond to the volcanics on the Black Sea coast
(green, no. 1), the Paleozoic sequence of Istanbul (brown, no. 2) and the Tertiary deposits of the southern part (yellow,
no. 3). As with Strickland and Hamilton, de Verneuil did not recognize the Mesozoic sedimentary strata, felsic intrusions
at the Anatolian side of Istanbul and other Tertiary deposits labeled a to d on the modern map.
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Figure 6. Hamilton’s 1838 map of Central Anatolia (Hamilton 1838b), compared to a modern geological map (simplified
after Şenel 2002) which is colored according to the map of Hamilton and numbered to provide a better visualization. In
this map, Hamilton focused mainly on the felsic plutons (red, no.2) and volcanic rocks (pink, no. 4), but he also depicted a
few outcrops of Cenozoic deposits. His brown unit of red and yellow sandstone, marls etc. (no.3) now corresponds to the
lower Tertiary sediments; whereas his blue unit of white limestones (no. 5) recognized today as a part of Upper Miocene
– Pliocene lacustrine limestones, interbedded with other coeval terrestrial siliciclastics. These terrestrial units are
displayed together with the Quaternary alluvia which were mainly concentrated around Lake Tuz and the streambed of
Kızılırmak (the Halys River) in the lower map. Hamilton’s emphasis on the horizontal white limestones (p. 549),
especially between Karapınar and Lake Tuz, was not incorrect; deep sinkholes, or obruks, are the most characteristic
geomorphological features of the modern central plains of Anatolia (e.g. Nazik et al. 2019).
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generic level; and most of these taxa have relatively long taxon ranges within the Paleozoic. The
modern biostratigraphic ranges indicate the real age of the fauna; for example, the undisputed
terebratulid brachiopods appeared in the fossil record by the Lower Devonian (Modzalevskaya
2007; Carlson 2016). In the case of Asaphus, a trilobite genus classified under the order Asaphida
which has a range from the Upper Cambrian through to the Upper Ordovician (e.g. Bell and Brady
2012), there was apparently a misidentification from today’s point of view. Asaphids had mostly
gone extinct at the end of the Ordovician (except taxa like Raphiophorus, see Edgecombe and
Sherwin (2001)) and their niche was replaced by scutellid trilobites (classified under Illaenacea by
some (e.g., Fortey 1990)) of similar morphology during the Silurian and Devonian (Clarkson 1998,
p. 383). Indeed, some asaphids have recently been assigned as illaenids (Whittington 2003), and
what Strickland found in Bosporus may represent a similar case. No more details about these fossils
were published, but the preliminary remarks given here concur with the following works which
referred Arnavutköy and Yûşa Tepesi to the Devonian (e.g., de Tchihatcheff 1850; Özgül 2012)
(Figure 5). Unfortunately, the Devonian System had yet to be defined when Hamilton and
Strickland published their papers (e.g., Hamilton 1849); nevertheless, today it is recognized that
Silurian deposits also exist as a part of the Paleozoic sequence of Istanbul. The ‘Hippurite
limestone’, as Strickland and Hamilton noticed, contained characteristic fossils like rudist
Hippurites indicating that these limestones formed during the Late Cretaceous (e.g., Özer and İrtem
1982). This rock unit can be considered as the first recognition of Mesozoic rocks in Turkey; even
though they did not specify the system, it was already known that Hippurites represented the
Cretaceous (e.g., d’Archiac 1836). The stratigraphic position of Hippurites was referred to the
Upper Cretaceous some years later (d’Orbigny 1847b, pp. 161 and 278). The Cretaceous was
nominated for Turkish strata in 1838 and 1841, respectively; whereas the Nummulites-bearing
rocks in Turkey was first recognized in 1841 (Hamilton 1838b; Hamilton and Strickland 1841).
However, the Paleogene was not distinguished as a separate period initially, due to the fact that the
genus Nummulites was considered to be an index taxon for the younger part of the Cretaceous at
the time. Pelecypods like Mactra, Cardium, and Unio and gastropods like Potamides, Neritina,
Helix, Planorbis, Lymnaea, Bulinus, Clausilia, and Pupa were the primary indicators for dating the
Tertiary deposits of Izmir and Istanbul (Strickland 1836b, 1836c, 1837a, 1837b). Furthermore,
Hamilton and Strickland also identified the Pliocene strata of Turkey in 1841 for the first time,
based on the fossil list provided by Olivier (1804), as mentioned above.
A single bone specimen noted by Strickland (1836c) within the Tertiary deposits of Istanbul
was the first vertebrate bone noted in Turkey, at least by a geologist. This overlooked fact was
clearly expressed by Strickland on page 391: “A single specimen of a bone occurred in this
formation, but it is too imperfect for me to decide, whether it belongs to mammifer or to a reptile.”.
This specimen either came from Baloukli (now Balıklı in Zeytinburnu District) or Makri-keui (now
Bakırköy District) (Figure 5). Sadly, no other information was provided for this specimen.
Research by two Frenchmen, the paleontologist Édouard de Verneuil (1805–1873) and
geologist Amie Boué (1794–1881) followed that of Strickland and Hamilton. As an eminent student
of the Paleozoic (e.g., Babin 2005), de Verneuil was also the first paleontologist to publish a
modern geological map of Istanbul (de Verneuil 1837) (Figure 5). De Verneuil refined Olivier’s
map; he assigned the ‘Terrain Schisteux’ of Olivier (1801) to the ‘Terrain Silurien ou Cambrien’
by using the fossils collected by Strickland and Hamilton (de Verneuil 1837, p. 274, footnote 2).
Moreover, he recognized the Tertiary deposits (‘Terrain Tertiaire’) in the southern part of Istanbul,
as Strickland and Hamilton did earlier, by using the fossils recovered by himself (e.g., the
pelecypod Sphaerium, and the gastropods Neritina, Melanopsis, and Planorbis). Years later, de
Verneuil would also become one of the first paleontologists to identify new fossil species from
Turkish strata.
Ami Boué was the first geologist to provide a comprehensive work on the geology of the
Balkans. Together with the geologists Bernard-Paul Couturier (Comte de Fournoue-Montalembert,
1787–1857) and Auguste Viquesnel (1800–1867, Figure 3), the zoologist Adolf Schwab (1807–
1891) and the botanist Emanuel von Friedrichsthal (1809–1842), Boué investigated the geography
and geology of the Balkan territories of Ottoman Turkey in his travels between 1836–1838,
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together with observations about Turkish lifestyle, customs and cuisine. His notes were presented
in a series of papers in different journals including the Bulletin de la Société géologique de France
and the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (Boué 1836, 1837a-c; 1838); and after adding his
extensive observations on history, politics, ethnicity and many other topics to his former reports,
his chef-d’œuvre book La Turquie d’Europe (The European Turkey) was published in 1840 (Boué
1840a). The geology was covered only in the first volume of the book, which was also published
as an extract booklet entitled Esquisse Géologique de la Turquie d’Europe (Geological Sketch of
the European Turkey) and published in the same year (Boué 1840b). In his publications, Boué
noted fossils of aquatic invertebrates in Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic rocks in various places,
which he used to make a geological map of Ottoman Turkey (Figure 7).
The territories covered by Boué and his co-workers mostly lay outside of the boundaries of
the modern Turkish Republic; thus, his works are more appreciated in the contemporary Balkan
countries (e.g., Nikolov 1996). Boué’s geological descriptions regarding Turkish Thrace (i.e., the
current Balkan lands of modern Turkey) was read in January 1838. About the geology of Turkish
Thrace, Boué mainly dealt with the ‘Silurian’ of Istanbul, the magmatic rocks including plutons of
Strandjas and the volcanics on the northern portion of the Bosporus, and the vast Tertiary deposits
which were shown to correlate with coeval rocks of the remaining Thrace Basin and of the Eastern
Europe (Boué 1838, 1840a, 1840b). He referred to the works of Strickland and de Verneuil when
making his stratigraphic assignments; in addition, he recognized the Tertiary molasse along the
Marmara coast and provided more details on the remaining Tertiary marls, limestones and
sandstones. Despite the mentioned presence of a geological map inside this booklet; such a map
has not been found in copies examined in three libraries, one in the library of the Geological Society
of France, one in the library of the Geological Survey of Austria and one in the personal library of
Professor Celal Şengör (Şengör 2007). An uncolored geological map was attached to the first
volume of La Turquie d’Europe (Boué 1840a), but the colored version was produced only more
recently by the Geological Survey of Austria (Figure 7).
A relatively minor contribution to early Turkish paleontology was made by the British
surgeon and geologist William Francis Ainsworth (1807–1896) (Figure 3). As a benefit of wearing
two hats, he was first appointed as a member of the Euphrates River expedition between 1835–
1837, an expedition commanded by Francis Rawdon Chesney (1789–1872) to find a shorter and
safer route to Colonial India after the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt (Uluğbay 2008), and then he
was engaged in a Christian mission between 1838–1840 to communicate with the Nestorian
Christians living in the eastern parts of Ottoman Turkey (e.g., Ainsworth 1839, 1888; Anonymous
1897). His observations from these journeys included a few remarks on geology and paleontology
as well. Ainsworth recognized some fossiliferous rocks, collected fossil shells and identified a few
genera like Nummulites. In addition to the fact that his observations were published later than those
of Strickland, Hamilton, Boué and de Verneuil, his fossil descriptions lacked accurate taxonomic
detail and those fossils were not used to distinguish particular strata. In this sense, Ainsworth’s
paleontological observations should be regarded only as comparable to former, or even some
contemporary, non-geologist travelers (e.g., Fontanier 1829).
Although their works were published later than those cited so far, the naval officer,
hydrographer and geologist Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt (1811–1888) and the naturalist Edward
Forbes (1815–1854) should also be mentioned among the pioneering works on paleontology in
Turkey (Figure 3). Both British men were aboard the expedition ship H.M.S. Beacon and made
surveys around Turkish Lycia (now Antalya Province, Figure 1) and the Aegean coasts of Ottoman
Turkey and the newly-established Greek state during the early 1840s (e.g., Spratt 1845; Spratt and
Forbes 1847). Spratt published geological observations on the Tertiary rocks around the Gulf of
Izmir and produced the second geological map of that city after Strickland (1837b). Gastropod
fossils collected from Tertiary limestones on the islands across Vourla (now Urla, Figure 1) were
identified by Forbes (Forbes 1845). This mollusk fauna was referred to pre-Pliocene, mostly to
Miocene, with one specimen, Planorbis rotundata, indicating Eocene (Forbes 1845; Spratt and
Forbes 1847). Similarly, a basic stratigraphic framework of Lycia was provided by both men, in
which they distinguished Cretaceous, lower Tertiary, Miocene and Pliocene strata based on their
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Figure 7. Boué’s 1840 map of Turkish Thrace and western Anatolia cropped from La Turquie d’Europe (upper),
compared to the modern geological map of Turkey (lower; simplified after Aksay et al. 2002; Konak 2002; Turhan 2002;
Türkecan and Yurtsever 2002). Modern boundaries of the Turkish Republic were depicted with black lines on Boué’s
map. Boué recognized 5 different units for Turkish Thrace and western Anatolia, namely, crystalline schists and granite
(pink, no.1), ‘trachytic rocks’ (red, no. 2), primitive (Paleozoic) ‘terrain’ (dark blue, no. 4), Cretaceous ‘terrain’ (light
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blue, no. 6), and Tertiary ‘terrain’ and alluvium (yellow, no. 8). The stratigraphic subdivision of Boué cannot be directly
applied to the modern version; the metamorphic rocks of all sorts (no. 1a) and granites (no. 1b) were identified separately
in two different tones of pink. The same coloration was used for Paleozoic (no. 4), Cretaceous (no. 6) and Cenozoic (no.
8) rocks. Undifferentiated deposits mainly encompassing Mesozoic rocks (no. 5 & no. 7) and ophiolites (no. 3) were also
depicted in the figure. Boué’s identification of most ‘trachytic’ rocks now represent several outcrops of the widespread
Cenozoic volcanics of the western Anatolia which are not distinguished in the modern map. Among volcanic rocks, only
the Upper Cretaceous volcanics are distinctively marked (red, no. 2). The Thrace portion of Boué’s map was relatively
more accurate since he visited this region repeatedly in person, but the Anatolian portion appeared to be based on work
by others (presumably Hamilton and Strickland) since the geological units were vaguely and somewhat erroneously
placed. Nonetheless, Boué preceded de Tchihatchef (1850, 1851a) and Viquesnel (1850a, 1850b) in recognition of the
Cretaceous in Turkish strata.
fossil content (Forbes and Spratt 1846). Accordingly, the Cretaceous limestones were the oldest
stratified rocks in the area which were overlain by Tertiary deposits which yielded a variety of
marine fossils including Nummulites, Pecten and Astrea, but also some freshwater forms like
Limneus, Paludina, Planorbis and Unio, all identified by Forbes. They recognized igneous rocks
in the area as well. Further observations on geology, paleontology and other aspects of the Turkish
Lycia were recounted in the book by Forbes and Spratt, entitled Travels in Lycia (1847), which
included the first geological map of Lycia.
Around the same time as Spratt and Forbes were working, a few marine genera like
Nummulites, Pecten and Ostrea in the limestones were mentioned by the geologist Warington
Wilkinson Smyth (1817–1890) (Figure 3) in his paper on the mining resources around Diyarbakır,
Ergani and Keban (Figure 1), which happens to be one of the earliest treatises on the ore minerals
of Turkey (Smyth 1845).
2.3. Earliest reactions to an emerging science: The first natural history museum, texts and courses
on geology and paleontology in Turkey during the first half of the nineteenth century
A period of long-term stagnation of Ottoman Turkey prevented the empire from benefiting from
geographic exploration, revolutionary ideas in science, and improvements in technology which had
been brought about by its European counterparts (e.g., Berkes 1964). Realization of such
drawbacks became inevitable after a series of defeats inflicted by the Holy League following the
unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1683, and the treaties of Karlowitz and Passarowitz (Figure 1),
signed in 1699 and 1718 respectively, that ended Ottoman military superiority in Europe once and
for all. To stop the rot, more serious attempts were made in the early eighteenth century to reform
the army as well as auxiliary organizations such as medical institutions. Two new military schools,
the Imperial School of Naval Engineering (Mühendishane-i Bahr-i Hümâyun) and the Imperial
School of Military Engineering (Mühendishane-i Berr-i Hümâyun) were established in 1773 and
1795, respectively, and these two imperial schools laid the foundation of the modern-day Istanbul
Technical University. Unlike the unsuccessful attempts by Selim III (1761–1808), the first modern
medical school of Turkey, the State Medical School (Tıphane-i Âmire), was founded in Istanbul in
14 March 1827 by Mahmud II (1785–1839), a day still celebrated as the Doctor’s Day in Turkey.
These institutions played a significant role in paving the way towards a modern
understanding of geology and paleontology. Based on the current evidence, the earliest recognition
of the advances in geology during the eighteenth century in Ottoman Turkey was a short text inside
of a compilation book, consisting of translated texts about scientific facts and theories of the time
(Şengör 2010). This book, Mecmua-i Ulûm-i Riyaziye (Compilation of Mathematical Studies), by
İshak Efendi (1774(?)–1835/1836), the head scholar of the Imperial School of Military Engineering
(the office now corresponds to the rectorate of the Istanbul Technical University) at the time, was
published in 1834. In the fourth volume of this book, İshak Efendi discussed minerals, earthquakes
and volcanoes and was clearly influenced by the plutonists in expressing that Earth possessed an
inner heat (Erguvanlı 1978; Şengör 2010).
The State Medical School was reorganized and reopened in its new building as the Imperial
Medical School (Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane) in 1839. The significance of the Imperial Medical
School for the earth sciences in Turkey was due to the fact that it housed the first natural history
171
collection of Turkey and its revised curriculum included the first geology courses offered in a
Turkish academy (e.g., İshakoğlu 1998; Günergun 2009). The collection of geology specimens
made up a small natural history museum which was only a part of a greater establishment including
a modest botanical garden, a very sufficient medical library, a good anatomical theater and an
excellent physics laboratory stocked with the latest equipment (MacFarlane 1850, pp. 263–264).
The anatomy and botany collections were more prominent, due to the fact that the museum was
founded within the medical school and the first director of the museum, Friedrich Wilhelm Noë
(1798–1858), specialized in pharmacy and botany (e.g., Çelik 2019; Aykut 2019). Nonetheless, the
geology specimens were gathered from the Balkan territories of Ottoman Turkey and Auguste
Viquesnel (Figure 3) was personally involved in bringing the collection into existence. In addition
to his two former visits to these territories with Ami Boué in 1836 and 1838, as mentioned above,
his observations on a third expedition between 1847–1848 were published in two volumes a year
after his death (Viquesnel 1868). As explained in the first volume, his request for a student from
the Imperial Medical School to assist in fieldwork and to communicate with the locals was granted
by the Grand Vizier Mustafa Reşid Pasha (1800–1858). This student, identified as Mr. Caliga by
Viquesnel, was also assigned to compile rock and fossil samples for the Imperial Medical School
under his supervision. The fossils collected on this journey were identified by Étienne-Jules
Adolphe Desmier de Saint-Simon, also widely known as Vicomte d’Archiac (1802–1868) (Figure
3). Unfortunately, this natural history collection was destroyed in the great fire of 1848, together
with the whole establishment (Viquesnel 1868; Günergun 2009).
2.4. Naming new fossil invertebrate species from Turkish strata in the mid-nineteenth century
The earliest recognition of new fossil invertebrate species in Turkey appeared in Strickland’s paper
on the geology of the Thracian Bosporus (1836c), as provided and discussed above. These fossils
were identified by the geologist Roderick Impey Murchison (1792–1871) and the paleontologist
James de Carle Sowerby (1787–1871) (Figure 3). They recognized new species of Paleozoic
brachiopods Producta and Orthis; however, species names for these new taxa were not introduced.
The earliest description of new fossil species from Turkish territories was made by Forbes (1845);
he described three new Tertiary gastropod species Planorbis spratti, Paludina stricklandiana and
Melania hamiltoniana from the islands across Urla (Figure 8). The species names were coined to
Figure 8. The first described new fossil

species from Turkey by Forbes (1845):
A. Lateral and dorsal views of Planorbis
(now Gyraulus) spratti; B. Lateral views
of Paludina stricklandiana (now
Lithoglyphus stricklandianus); C.
Lateral view of Melania (now
Prososthenia hamiltoniana).
honor the efforts of Strickland, Hamilton and Spratt, which makes these fossil taxa the first
dedicated to foreign geologists working in Turkey. On a side note, new nomenclatures for these
species, Gyraulus spratti, Prososthenia hamiltoniana and Lithoglyphus stricklandianus, were
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proposed by malacologist Wilhelm August Wenz (1886–1945) in 1923, 1926 and 1928,
respectively.
More new fossil taxa with given species names were identified from the specimens collected
by Pierre Alexandrowitsch de Tchihatcheff (1808–1890) and Xavier Hommaire de Hell (1812–
1848) during the late 1840s (Figure 3). Born into a noble Russian family, Pierre de Tchihatcheff
was highly educated in natural sciences and he turned into one of the major figures of Turkish
geology. De Tchihatcheff came to Istanbul in the mid-1840s as an officer posted to the Russian
Embassy and shortly mastered Turkish, together with the local dialects. He spent time during the
years between 1847 and 1858 examining various part of Anatolia and gathered his observations in
a colossal work Asie Mineure: Description physique, statistique et archéologique de cette contrée,
which happens to be the first and still the most comprehensive report on the geology,
geomorphology, paleontology, climate, flora and fauna of Anatolia (Şengör 2007). This work was
divided into parts dedicated to physical geography (de Tchihatcheff 1853a), climate and zoology
(de Tchihatcheff 1856), botany (de Tchihatcheff 1860a, 1860b), geology (de Tchihatcheff 1867,
1869a, 1869b) and paleontology (de Tchihatcheff 1866–1869), respectively, with three atlases
following the volumes of physical geography (de Tchihatcheff 1853b), botany (de Tchihatcheff
1860c) and paleontology (de Tchihatcheff 1866).
Before his masterpiece was published, however, the initial observations and findings of de
Tchihatcheff on the geology and paleontology of Anatolia had already been introduced in a series
of papers. In one early paper, he summarized the two and a half years expedition into four important
points (de Tchihatcheff 1849). Relying on the fossil data, he made the earliest determinations of
Devonian, Jurassic and ‘Nummulitique’ (roughly corresponds to the present-day Paleogene) in
Anatolia, whereas his last point was on the geological structure of Mount Erciyes (Argaeus). Then
a year later, de Tchihatcheff outlined the sedimentary rocks of Anatolia by distinguishing
Devonian, Jurassic, Cretaceous, ‘Nummulitique’, Miocene and recent lacustrine units, all based on
their fossil content (de Tchihatcheff 1850). Since de Tchihatcheff himself was not a paleontologist,
all the taxa he presented in his works were identified predominantly by Édouard de Verneuil and
Vicomte d'Archiac, but also by Jules Haime (1824–1856), Alcide Dessalines d’Orbigny (1802–
1857), Paul Henri Fischer (1835–1893) and Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart (1801–1876), the son
of Alexander Brongniart (Figure 3). Regarding the new taxa published in 1850, only one new
Paleozoic species, the Devonian coral Michelinia tchihatcheffi, was determined by de Verneuil; the
remaining new species included Paleogene bivalves Cardium nummuliticum, Spondylus asiaticus,
Natica bazarkensis (or bazarkoiensis), Cerithium tchihatcheffi (now Campanile tchihatcheffi, e.g.
Güngör 1975), Paleogene gastropod Terebellum belemnitoideum, Miocene coral Astraea
tchihatcheffi, Miocene echinoid Clypeaster tchihatcheffi and Miocene bivalve Cardium subhians,
all determined by Vicomte d’Archiac (Figure 9). In another treatise published in the same year,
d’Archiac (1850) identified some of the new Paleogene species from Turkey which were
undetermined in the paper of de Tchihatcheff (1850), including bivalves Cerithium leymeriei (now
Campanile leymeriei, e.g., Güngör 1975), Pecten tchihatcheffi, Cardium galaticum, gastropods
Phrasinella oweni, Fusus zafranboliensis, Sigaretus karamassensis, and even a crab Ranina
tchihatcheffi (Figure 9). Dreissena bouldourensis, another specimen collected around the Lake
Burdur (Figure 1), and Cardium bazarcoensis were described much later by d’Archiac, but both
taxa were still referred to the same paper in which they remained undescribed (de Tchihatcheff
1866–1869) (Figure 9). More new fossil taxa were introduced in later works by de Tchihatcheff
(e.g., de Tchihatcheff 1851a, 1851b, 1864, 1866–1869).
Following the paper of de Tchihatcheff in 1850, the Society was acquainted with the
observations and findings of Hommaire de Hell, an engineer and traveler who was known for his
journeys to the lands of Ottoman Turkey and Qajar Iran, in the same year. Despite his early death
of dysentery in Iran during his last expedition, Hommaire de Hell is still remembered as a notable
traveler and an important character in Turkish geology. His notes and findings were read by
173
Figure 9. New fossil taxa from Turkey identified by de Verneuil and Vicomte d’Archiac in the paper of de Tchihatcheff
(1850) and illustrated in the paleontology atlas of Asie Mineur (modified after de Tchihatcheff 1866). A. Cerithium (now
Campanile) tchihatcheffi (with a close-up view of the last whorls); B. Cardium nummuliticum; C. Cerithium (now
Campanile) leymeriei; D. Fusus zafranboliensis; E. Natica bazarkoiensis; F. Terebellum belemnitoideum; G. Phrasinella
oweni; H. Cardium galaticum (left lateral and posterior views); I. Spondylus asiaticus; J. Pecten tchihatcheffi; K.
Cardium subhians (left lateral and dorsal views); L. Cardium bazarcoensis (right lateral and posterior views); M.
Dreissena bouldourensis (interior and exterior views); N. Sigaretus karamassensis (ventral and dorsal views); O.
Michelinia tchihatcheffi (with a close-up view); P. Ranina tchihatcheffi. Two Miocene forms, the coral Astraea
tchihatcheffi and the echinoid Clypeaster tchihatcheffi were not illustrated in the atlas. Scale is 5 centimeters for each
three sections.
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Viquesnel to the Geological Society of France in two consecutive papers after his death; the fossil
specimens were determined by de Verneuil and Vicomte d’Archiac as well (Viquesnel 1850a,
1850b). The fossil specimens from Turkey were referred to Cretaceous and younger rocks by
Vicomte d’Archiac; two specimens were recovered from the ‘Nummulitique’ of Turkish Thrace,
the benthic foraminifer Orbitolites karakaiensis and the echinoid Eupatagus viquesneli were named
as new species (Viquesnel 1850b).
This early fossil inventory gathered from various parts of Anatolia deserves further
discussion. To begin with, the species names chosen by Vicomte d’Archiac for the taxa represented
the earliest authentic nomenclature in Turkish paleontology. Natica bazarkoiensis, the species
name of which refers to the village of Pazarköy in Bolu Province, became the first taxa to be named
after a place in Turkey, followed by Fusus zafranboliensis and Sigaretus karamassensis, referring
to Safranbolu in Karabük Province and the Mount Koramaz in Kayseri Province, respectively
(Figure 1). The species name of Cardium galaticum corresponded to Galatia, the ancient province
in western-central Anatolia. Moreover, Saint Georges, the type locality of Ranina tchihatcheffi,
now corresponds to the Şamlar area of Istanbul. It was also stated that Orbitolites karakaiensis
fossils were found abundantly in Turkish Thrace, albeit the original locality was not pinpointed
(d’Archiac 1850, pp. 173–174).
2.5. The fossil vertebrate discoveries within Turkish territories during the second half of the
nineteenth and the earliest twentieth centuries
Following the discovery of the tetrapod bone with an uncertain affinity from the Bakırköy-Balıklı
neighborhood in the southern part of Istanbul (Strickland 1836c), more fossil vertebrates,
predominantly fish and mammal fossils, were reported from various parts of Ottoman Turkey
during the second half of the nineteenth and the earliest twentieth centuries.
The fish imprints from Bakırköy in Istanbul (Figures 1 and 5) were presented by de
Tchihatcheff (1851b) and these fossils were referred to zoologist Achille Valenciennes (1794–
1865) (Figure 3) by d’Archiac for determination. By comparison to the fossil fish from Lebanon,
Valenciennes recognized Euripholis sulcidens Pictet, 1831, E. boissieri Pictet, 1831, and Clupea
brevissima Blainville, 1818, and he described a new genus, Strymonia sirica Valenciennes, 1851.
Those fishes were not illustrated either in the original paper, nor in Asie Mineure by de Tchihatcheff
(1866) and the specimens could not be located in the Natural History Museum of Paris (Sen 2016).
A more intriguing fossil fish discovery was spelled out by William Ridley Swan (1826–1879). Born
in North Shields, England, Swan was a colliery viewer in Northumberland. He came to Istanbul to
work in the Istanbul office of the North British & Mercantile Insurance Co. Ltd., a Scottish
Company, today part of Aviva. Swan spent most of his later life in Istanbul and died there as well.
He was also interested in the geology of Istanbul and published a brief report on the Devonian rocks
of Bosporus (Swan 1864) and a more comprehensive examination of the geology of the Princes’
Islands of Istanbul (Swan 1868). In the latter study, Swan found a fish bone on the southwest side
of the Prinkipo (now Büyükada, Figure 1), the largest of the Princes’ Islands, and he acknowledged
it as the first from the Devonian strata of Turkey. Taxonomic affinity of this fish bone remains
unresolved since its current location is uncertain. Furthermore, some fish otoliths were identified
by William Kennett Loftus (1820–1858), a British naturalist who was recognized for his work on
geology and archeology (Figure 3), from the vicinity of Uruk and Larsa (Loftus 1855); but this
territory has not been controlled by Turkish government for more than a century now. Finally,
remnants of a Neogene percoid fish from Çanakkale were reported among the mammal fossils
(Calvert and Neumayr 1880).
The paleontological evaluation of mammal fossils in Turkey dates back to the second half
of the nineteenth century as well. The earliest body fossil of a Cenozoic mammal collected from
Ottoman Turkey was the left foot of a perissodactylan. The collector, Auguste Viquesnel sent it to
the French geologist and paleontologist Jean Albert Gaudry (1827–1908) (Figure 3) who provided
an initial description in the second volume of Viquesnel’s book (Viquesnel 1868, pp. 470–471).
This specimen was re-described and referred to Palaeotherium sp. in a recent work (Métais and
175
Sen 2017). The locality for this fossil, however, is the hill of Balouk Keui (now Pylaia) situated on
the road to Ferendjik (now Feres), a village located close to the modern Turkish border with Greece
(Sen 2016; Métais and Sen 2017) (Figure 1). Therefore, the earliest mammal fossils from modern
Turkey became the ones recovered from the Neogene deposits of Erenköy in the Çanakkale
Province and Eskihisar in the Kocaeli Peninsula (Sen 2016) (Figure 1). A large number of fossil
bones from the Erenköy locality were gathered during the 1850s by Frank Calvert (1828–1908), an
archeology enthusiast and later a consular officer of Great Britain, and they were identified by the
German paleontologist Melchior Neumayr (1845–1890) who also became the joint author of the
publication (Calvert and Neumayr 1880) (Figure 3). The existence of the Erenköy fossils was
already confirmed by another Briton, Admiral Spratt, who was already acquainted with the Turkish
coast from his earlier expedition on the Gulf of Izmir as mentioned above. Spratt noted that some
of the numerous mammal bones were added to the collected invertebrate fossils in order to be taken
to England (Spratt 1858). These mammalian remains are now deposited at the University of
Manchester and are regarded as representatives of a rich Neogene fauna (Sen 2016). The vertebrate
fossil quarry in Eskihisar was discovered in 1873 during the construction of the Istanbul to Izmit
(Kocaeli) railway and the bones were identified by the Austrian geologist and paleontologist Franz
Toula (1845–1920) (Figure 3) some years later (Toula 1891).
New findings of Cenozoic fish and mammal fossils from Turkey continued to take place in
the earliest twentieth century as well. A significant number of fossils were collected by the British
colonel, geology enthusiast and fossil fuel entrepreneur Thomas English (1844–1935) during his
geological survey of the Tertiary formations of Thrace and around the Dardanelles Strait and their
coal and petroleum potential (English 1902, 1904). The invertebrate fossils were described by the
British paleontologist Richard Bullen Newton (1854–1926) (Figure 10A); but he sought guidance
of vertebrate specialists for the relevant fossils (Newton 1904). Accordingly, Diplomystus
marmorensis, a new species of lacustrine fish fossil from the Miocene deposits around Şarköy was
identified by Arthur Smith Woodward (1864–1944) (Figure 10B). A lumbar vertebra collected
from the same locality was tentatively referred to the extinct sirenian Halitherium by Charles
William Andrews (1866–1924) (Figure 10C). Andrews also confirmed Newton’s attribution of a
lower jaw and teeth unearthed from the Oligocene of “Masatly” (possibly corresponding to
modern-day Maksutlu in Edirne Province, Figure 1) to the extinct artiodactyl Anthracotherium
(Newton 1904). In the same year, the Moravian geologist Franz Xaver Schaffer (1876–1953)
(Figure 10D) published the geological results of his fieldwork in Thrace (Schaffer 1904). In a
section in his report, Schaffer noted a few Neogene mammal and silicified wood fossils within the
sandstones on the southern bank of the Maritza valley between Adrianople (now Edirne) and
Mustafa Pasha (now Svilengrad in Bulgaria) (Figure 1). This unknown fossil locality is possibly
situated somewhere in the northeastern end of modern-day Greece. The Austrian paleontologist
Othenio Abel (1875–1946) (Figure 10E) described Sivatherium giganteum among these mammal
fossils, a large fossil giraffid representing the first record of its kind in Europe (Schaffer 1904; Abel
1904). Finally, the Tertiary deposits around Istanbul were recorded as barren in terms of vertebrate
remains by de Tchihatcheff (1851b); the first findings were made by Nicolae Arabu (?–1948), a
Romanian geologist of Armenian descent (Sen 2016). In addition to a rich mollusk fauna and large
trunks of silicified wood, a few remains of fossil artiodactylans were noted by Arabu in 1913 and
1916 from the southern coast of the Küçükçekmece Lagoon, situated in the southern part of Istanbul
and located more westward compared to the Bakırköy-Balıklı neighborhood.
Considering the works cited in this section, very few fossil reptiles have been mentioned.
Boué (1840a, 1840b) mentioned fossil reptile bones with unknown affinities from the Lower
Cretaceous beds of Lovech (Lofça) and Shumen (Şumnu) which were once part of Ottoman Thrace
but now belong to Bulgaria (Figure 1). Similarly, a dubious bone fragment recovered by Loftus
(1855) from the Tertiary deposits of Aqar-Quf which is now a part of Iraq (Figure 1). Calvert and
Neumayr (1880) documented carapace and hindlimb fragments belonging to the turtle taxa Trionyx
and Emys, alongside a vast quantity of other fossils. Fossil avians were probably absent in the
nineteenth century literature on Turkish vertebrate fossils, at least to the best of the author’s
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knowledge. Examples of early fossil discoveries of non-mammalian tetrapods from Turkey may be
hidden on a dusty bookshelf or in a forgotten specimen cabinet.
Figure 10. Portraits of scientists who contributed to the mammal paleontology in Turkey during the earliest twentieth
century. A. Richard Bullen Newton (Anonymous 1921); B. Arthur Smith Woodward (after Cooper 1945); C. Charles
William Andrews (after Woodward 1926); D. Franz Xaver Schaffer (after Trauth 1953); E. Othenio Abel (from the
Austrian National Library). Portraits of Thomas English and Nicolae Arabu could not be found.
2.6. The first official geology courses and the first books and articles mentioning fossils and
paleontology in Turkey during the second half of the nineteenth century
As the museum collections apparently were customized to the requirements of the curriculum, it is
likely that topics on geology were already introduced at the Imperial Medical School from its
establishment. Geology courses officially started in 1856 and were taught without interruption
between 1862 and 1874 by Abdullah Bey (e.g., Erguvanlı 1954, 1979; Unat 1987; İshakoğlu 1998).
Born as Karl Eduard Hammerschmidt in Vienna, Abdullah Bey (1801–1874) was of Hungarian
descent and a very important personage who is regarded as the father of geology, mineralogy,
paleontology and entomology in Turkey (Figure 3). He began his career as a Doctor of Law and
then became interested in natural history, first becoming a physician and then an entomologist. He
escaped from Habsburg Austria to Ottoman Turkey after the 1848 Revolution and converted to
Islam in order to obtain permanent residence and to become eligible to serve as a professional. He
adopted the name Abdullah Bey and began working as a physician and lecturer in the Imperial
Medical School in Istanbul. After a few years spent in the military hospital of Damascus during the
early 1850s, he returned to his former duties in 1855. Although Abdullah Bey was widely-known
177
as a physician and the founder of Turkish Red Crescent, he also was seriously interested in earth
sciences in Turkey and he served as a lecturer of İlmü’l Arz ve Maadin (Geology and Mineralogy)
from 1862 until his death. The courses were initially taught in French, but all were converted to
Turkish in 1870. İbrahim Lütfi (1838–1902), later İbrahim Lütfi Pasha (Figure 3), a medical doctor
who was the assistant of Abdullah Bey, helped with the translation and took over following the
death of Abdullah Bey (Erguvanlı 1979, 1980; İshakoğlu 1998).
Geology classes were removed from the curriculum of the Imperial Medical School after the
death of İbrahim Lütfi; and added to that of the House of Sciences (Dârülfünun), the precursor of
Istanbul University (Erguvanlı 1980). Geology courses in the House of Sciences started in the
academic term of 1900–1901, and the lecturer position was secured by the appointment of Halil
Edhem (1861–1938, took the surname Eldem after the Surname Law of 1934) (Figure 3). Halil
Edhem was neither a geologist nor a paleontologist; he obtained his training in the field of
chemistry in Switzerland as the first Turkish citizen who earned a doctoral degree in natural
sciences (Pamir 1979; Erguvanlı 1982; İshakoğlu 1998). He returned to Istanbul with his degree in
1885 and worked as a teacher in several schools in Istanbul for 16 years prior to getting his position
in the House of Sciences in 1901 (Erguvanlı 1982). In contrast to the Imperial Medical School,
geology continued to be taught in the School of Medicine in Damascus, which was relocated to
Beirut in 1916, until the end of the First World War (İhsanoğlu 1999) (Figure 1).
Free public lectures on geology were initiated in Istanbul, contemporaneously with the
classes of Abdullah Bey. These public lectures were arranged by the first scientific society of
Turkey, Cemiyet-i İlmiyye-i Osmâniyye, which was founded in 1861 (Budak 2011). The lectures
started sometime after October 1862, the date when the society was granted a permanent building,
and those on geology were given by İbrahim Edhem Pasha (1818–1893) (Figure 3), the first mining
engineer of Ottoman Turkey and also the father of Halil Edhem (Erguvanlı 1952; Avşaroğlu 2004;
Budak 2011). He was sent to Paris to study at a young age, where he graduated from École des
Mines in 1839. Upon his return to his homeland, he was appointed as a mine manager and he
worked in different mines in Istanbul, Amasya, Keban and Ergani between 1840–1847,
respectively (Figure 1). Although many governmental duties occupied most of his later life,
İbrahim Edhem remained actively involved in earth science education in Turkey. İbrahim Edhem
Pasha was the first person in Ottoman Turkey to use the word geology (jeoloji in Turkish) to
describe this science (Erguvanlı 1952, 1978). He also penned a series of articles entitled Medhal-i
İlm-i Jeoloji (Introduction to the Science of Geology) for the journal of the society, Mecmûa-i
Fünûn (The Journal of Sciences), to impart geology to a general audience. These articles were
published in parts from the second issue (July 1862) until issue 33 (January-February 1865) (Budak
2011). Even though he mainly discussed the physical and chemical properties of common minerals
and compounds of the Earth, some information about paleontology, geologic time and evolution
was spelled out in the text by himself and also by Münif Mehmed Pasha (1830(?)–1910), an
Ottoman statesman and the editor of the journal, who wrote a preface in the second issue to this
series of articles (Yurtoğlu 2020). Accordingly, both men informed the readers that the Earth is
very old in age, the cooled surface of the planet was barren at the start but first plants then animals
appeared, these plants and animals evolved to different forms through geologic time, whereas some
of them have gone extinct and some migrated to different places, fossils are remnants of former
plants and animals and they can be collected from sedimentary rock (but not from the plutonic
rocks), and Earth’s past can be subdivided into a series of successive geological ages where each
can be differentiated by its fossil content. The articles of İbrahim Edhem Pasha came to an end
because of his growing bureaucratic duties; Mecmûa-i Fünûn and Cemiyet-i İlmiyye-i Osmâniyye
both ceased two years later due to a lack of funding and other engagements of their members, as
declared by Münif Mehmed Pasha in the last issue of the journal published in June 1867 (Budak
2011). It is perfectly reasonable to assume that İbrahim Edhem Pasha would have gone into details
of paleontology and historical geology if he could have maintained his series. Similarly, these two
topics should have been discussed in his public lectures, albeit the outline of these lectures have
not survived.
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The first formal education in mining engineering began in the School of Mining (Maadin
Mektebi) in Istanbul which was founded in 1874 (MEB 2019), as a result of the on-going efforts of
İbrahim Edhem Pasha as well. This school functioned independently for a few years; but in 1880,
it was merged with the already existing forestry school and renamed as the School of Forestry and
Mining (Orman ve Maadin Mektebi) in which the mining and geology classes diminished in
importance. Moreover in 1892, the School of Forestry and Mining was shut down as well; the
mining and geology education were completely removed and the forestry school was moved away
and reorganized as the Halkalı School of Agriculture (Halkalı Ziraat Mektebi). Unfortunately, this
first attempt of training mining engineers in Turkey was unsuccessful, and all the following mining
engineers of Ottoman Turkey graduated from various European universities. Systematic training
of mining engineers and earth scientists of all sorts started to happen in Turkey only after the
foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, which will be detailed elsewhere.
The first geology book published in Turkish was a translation made from the Arabic version
of a French popular geology book published in 1833 with the title Geologie Populaire à la Portée
de Tout le Monde Appliquée à l’Agriculture et à l’Industrie (Popular Geology Accessible to
Everybody, Applied to the Agriculture and to the Industry) by Nérée Boubée (1806–1863), a
French naturalist, geologist, entomologist and professor at the University of Paris (Vapereau 1858,
1893; Şengör 2010) (Figure 11A). Besides his other interests, Boubée occasionally gave geology
courses for the public and published several geology books and maps; and Geology Populaire was
among his most credited works. The Arabic translation of Geology Populaire was made in 1842
by an Egyptian named Ahmad Fayyid (lifespan unknown), a scholar who lived in Egypt under the
rule of the Muhammad Ali dynasty. As one of the students sent to Europe as a part of the
modernization process of Egypt, Fayyid was educated in engineering, mathematics and chemistry
in Lyon and London during the 1830s (Heyworth-Dunne 1939, p. 171), then became a lecturer of
natural sciences and chemistry in the School of Engineering in Bulaq, Cairo. Fayyad’s translation
of Geology Populaire was published in 1842 under the name of Al-Aqwâl al-Murdiya fî ’ilm Bunyat
al-Kura al-Ardiyya (Approved Words on the Studies on the Structure of the Globe) (Figure 11B).
Figure 11. The title pages of Géologie Populaire in the order of printing: A. The original title page (1833); B. Title page
of the Arabic version (1842); C. Title page of the Ottoman Turkish (1853), typed in Arabic letters
(after Şengör 2010).
Geology Populaire was translated to Ottoman Turkish from the Arabic version by Ali Fethi
Efendi (1804/1805–1857), a mullah born in Rusçuk (Ruse), a town now situated in Bulgaria
(Şengör 2010) (Figure 11C). İlm-i Tabakatü’l-Arz (Studies on the Earth Strata) was the title given
by Ali Fethi Efendi and the book was published in 1853 in Istanbul. As with the former two
179
versions, the Turkish version was composed of three main chapters: An introduction which gave
the basics like the definition of geology, Earth’s age and its interior structure, then the history of
the Earth, and lastly the geotechnical geognosy dealing with the industrial applications of geology.
The history of life was also discussed within the history of the Earth, including fossils, and the
origins and extinctions of animals and plants in the quadripartite geologic time. However,
according to Şengör (2010), the purpose of translation seemed to be to increase general knowledge,
rather than an effort to introduce a decent textbook or a classical work on geology, since the early
textbooks most probably were in French until their translation into Turkish in 1870 as mentioned
earlier (e.g., İshakoğlu 1998). In the same work, Şengör points out that the Ali Fethi Efendi’s
version was dramatically insufficient compared to that of Fayyad’s; he tended to oversimplify the
original text, omitted several important theories and the whole book contained many incorrect
additives, typos and mistranslations. The underlying reason for such insufficiency was most
probably that Ali Fethi Efendi never had a formal scientific education.
Although İlm-i Tabakatü’l-Arz was the first book in Turkish mentioning fossils and the
history of life, the first proper geology textbook in Turkey with a stratigraphy and paleontology
section was written by Abdullah Bey as well (Erguvanlı 1978, 1979) (Figure 3). His textbook was
originally written in French and used during his courses at the Imperial Medical School. After
Abdullah Bey’s death, this textbook was translated to Turkish by his assistant İbrahim Lütfi and
published in 1875 with the same title of the course, İlmü’l Arz ve’l Maâdin (Geology and
Mineralogy) (Figure 12A). This book contains four sections which can be translated approximately
as: (1) mineralogy and petrography, (2) petrology, (3) stratigraphy and paleontology, and (4)
physical geology. Researches of Abdullah Bey on the Devonian of Istanbul were included in this
book, as well as many other topics such as the causal mechanisms of earthquakes (Erguvanlı 1979,
1980).
Figure 12. The two significant books regarding paleontology lectures in the Ottoman Turkey. A. The cover of İlmü’l Arz
ve’l Maâdin by Abdullah Bey which was translated by İbrahim Lütfi (after Günergun ve Şengör 2011); B. The cover of
İlm-i Maadin ve’l Tabakatü’l-Arz (after Erguvanlı 1982).
Following İlmü’l Arz ve’l Maâdin, a handful of geology books were published in Turkish
during the Ottoman period. Most of these books were either translations of European academic
textbooks or textbooks for high school students (Erguvanlı 1978). Possibly, the second noteworthy
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academic textbook on geology, especially regarding the principles of geology, was İlm-i Maadin
ve’l Tabakatü’l-Arz (Mineralogy and Earth Strata) by Halil Edhem, published in 1891 (Erguvanlı
1982) (Figure 12B). This book was based on the class notes of his tutors, the Austrian geologists
Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829–1884) and Franz Toula (Pamir 1979). Both von Hochstetter and
Toula were familiar with the geology of Turkey; the former was a colleague of Abdullah Bey and
they investigated Thracian outcrops in the western part of Istanbul (Şengör 2007); whereas the
latter studied Triassic outcrops in the eastern part of Istanbul, as mentioned above.
It is an intriguing question how much Halil Edhem benefited from his father’s notes while
writing his book. İbrahim Edhem Pasha mentioned in Medhal-i İlm-i Jeoloji that some concepts he
introduced would be discussed in details in his book entitled İlm-i Jeoloji (Yurtoğlu 2020). This
İlm-i Jeoloji book has not been found; it is very probable that İbrahim Edhem Pasha could not find
enough time to write it. Therefore, it is conceivable that Halil Edhem incorporated at least some of
his father’s notes into his work.
2.7. Contributions of Abdullah Bey and Halil Edhem to the animal fossil record of Turkey
The names of Abdullah Bey and Halil Edhem should be recognized more vigorously as they helped
improved the animal fossil record of Turkey. As a paleontologist himself, Abdullah Bey
contributed greatly to the investigation of the Devonian fauna of Istanbul. He revisited the
Devonian localities of Istanbul, which were mainly clustered along the Bosporus as Kanlıca-
Çubuklu, Arnavutköy and Baltalimanı (Figure 5) and in the vicinities of Kartal and Pendik on the
southeastern coast of Istanbul, from where he re-collected and identified hundreds of species and
varieties of Devonian cnidarians, brachiopods, mollusks and trilobites (Abdullah Bey 1869, 1870a,
1870b, 1872b, 1872c). These fossils would establish the core of the paleontology collection of the
future natural history museum of Istanbul as detailed below. We were informed that duplicates of
some of these specimens were donated to the National Museum of Natural History (Muséum
National d’Histoire Naturelle) in Paris (Abdullah Bey 1867a, 1867b). These specimens were
described by de Verneuil and published as a short note in the periodical of the French Academy of
Sciences (d’Archiac and de Verneuil 1867). Subsequently, more detailed descriptions of these taxa
were provided by de Verneuil in the appendix to the last volume of Asie Mineure (de Tchihatcheff
1866–1869) and some forms were depicted in the atlas as well (de Tchihatcheff 1866) (Figure 13).
de Verneuil described a few new taxa in the collection of Abdullah Bey, and among these, a new
Devonian trilobite species Cryphaeus abdullahi became the first fossil taxa named for a geologist
in Turkey and another newly described species of a coeval ammonoid Orthoceras stamboul
succeeded the famous Devonian coral Pleurodictyum constantinopolitanum Roemer, 1863 for
being named after the city of Istanbul (Figure 13).
Halil Edhem developed a remarkable interest in earth sciences as mentioned, probably due
to his father’s influence on him. He collaborated with Franz Toula (Figure 3), who discovered the
Triassic sequence around the Gulf of Izmit and published a rich Muschelkalk invertebrate fauna
with multiple new species, where two of which, the brachiopod Rhynchonella edhemi and the
ammonoid Acrocordiceras halili, were dedicated to Halil Edhem who accompanied him in the field
work (Toula 1896a, 1896b). Such taxonomic attribution may count as the first to a Turkish-born
natural scientist; whereas Toula referred to a wide range of themes like geographic places (e.g.
ammonoid Monophylites anatolicus), geologists/paleontologists (e.g. ammonoids Pleuronautilus
tschihatscheffi and Beyrichites fritschi) and various historical figures to name the new species he
coined. Halil Edhem was also involved in the publication of the vertebrate specimens unearthed
from Eskihisar. These specimens were left undescribed for a long time until they caught the
attention of Halil Edhem soon after his return from Switzerland to Istanbul; he then made contact
with Franz Toula who provided the initial taxonomic identifications referring all to Neogene
mammals (Toula 1891). The Eskihisar fossils were placed in the museum of the geology institute
of the House of Sciences, and as will be seen in the following, totally destroyed in the fire of 1918
(Ahmet Malik and Hamit Nafiz 1933; Sen 2016).
181
Figure 13. Some of the Devonian taxa of Istanbul, illustrated in the paleontology atlas of Asie Mineur (modified after de
Tchihatcheff 1866). A. Cryphaeus abdullahi; B. Homalonotus salteri; C. Orthoceras stamboul; D. Trochoceras barrandei;
E. Pterinea subfasciculata; F. Pleurodictyum constantinopolitanum. A-E represent the new taxa described based on the
specimens collected by Abdullah Bey; the other newly generated taxa, Leptaena tchihatcheffi, was not displayed in the
atlas. Images are not to scale.
2.8. The origin of coal mining and discoveries of fossil land plants in Turkey in the nineteenth
century
Plant fossils from Turkish strata were documented before the second half of the nineteenth century
(e.g., Forbes 1845), but the most notable ones were recovered from the coal deposits. Formed by
the accumulation, burial and diagenesis of dead land plants in the geologic time, coal was the most
demanded fossil energy resource in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; and in terms of
paleontology, coal mining was the most effective process to reveal plant fossils. The earliest official
discovery of coal in Turkey was reported by Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha (1675–1747) from Ottoman
Bosnia (Figure 1). Born as Claude Alexandre de Bonneval, he was originally a French noble
(Comte de Bonneval) and a military officer. After serving in the French and Austrian armies,
respectively, he took refuge in Ottoman Turkey in 1729 (Özcan 1998). The European borders of
the Turkish Empire were relatively peaceful for a short interval following the treaty of Passarowitz,
a period known as the ‘Tulip Era’ (1718–1730); however, military campaigns restarted shortly after
this interlude was over. Meanwhile, having converted to Islam and having changed his name to
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Ahmed, Bonneval was appointed as the commander of the Humbaracı corps, the artillery and
grenadier troops of the Ottoman army, and commemorated as ‘Humbaracı’ (Artilleryman) since
then. He was assigned to reinforce fortresses in Bosnia, and during that time he studied the nature
of the area and came to suspect the possible existence of mineral wealth (Vandal 1887). Ahmed
Pasha discovered a coal vein in 1731 during one of his prospecting campaigns; but since he failed
to meet high expectations of the authorities for gold or other precious metals, he was reproached
and prospecting works were abandoned (Vandal 1887; Karal 1954).
More coal occurrences were reported during the second half of the eighteenth century and
at the beginning of the nineteenth century from the Black Sea coast of Istanbul and various places
in western and southern Anatolia (e.g., Strickland 1836c; Karal 1954; Öğreten 2006; Şakul 2016).
Because these coals were of lignite grade, a type of coal with a low calorific value which was not
preferred for industrial use, the geology of most of these deposits had not been studied in depth.
Nonetheless, de Tchihatcheff investigated the coal deposits on the Black Sea coast of Thracian
Bosporus, near the Lake Terkos (or Durusu), which was formerly noted by Olivier (1801). De
Tchihatcheff documented the Tertiary fossil flora of Terkos, and included two new genera,
Constantinium proteoides and Tchihatcheffites bizantina, described in 1863 by the Austrian
botanist and paleontologist Franz Joseph Andreas Nicolaus Unger (1800–1870) (de Tchihatcheff
1863), who was already acquainted with Anatolian fossil plants (Unger 1853). Longitudinal and
transverse sections of these two genera were depicted in the atlas of the paleontology of Asie
Mineure (de Tchihatcheff 1866, plate 17) (Figure 14). Tchihatcheffites remained as incertae sedis,
Figure 14. Transversal

(horizontal) and longitudinal
(tangential) sections of
Constantinium proteoides and
Tchihatcheffites bizantina
(modified after de Tchihatcheff
1866). Transversal (A) and
longitudinal (B) sections of C.
proteoides displaying: a.
primary medullary ray; b.
secondary medullary ray; c.
spiral vessels; and d. thick-
walled prosenchymatous wood
cells. Transversal (C) and
longitudinal (D) sections of T.
bizantina displaying: a. spiral
vessels in fine annuli; b. spiral
vessels forming annulus; c.
cells of medullary ray; and d.
prosenchymal wood cells.
Images are not to scale.
but Constantinium was referred to the angiosperm family Proteaceae (de Tchihatcheff 1866–1869).
Based on invertebrate biostratigraphy, these two taxa were considered to be ‘mid-Tertiary’ in age
(de Tchihatcheff 1866–1869) which roughly corresponds to the Oligo-Miocene interval. Since
then, however, these two taxa have been almost forgotten and cited only in a few catalogues (e.g.
183
Andrews 1970), and the current location where these specimens are kept is unknown as well. On
the bright side, more recent works encompassing the Cenozoic paleobotany to the east of Lake
Terkos demonstrated the presence of Oligocene and Miocene deposits in the area (e.g., Nagalhard
1930; Nakoman 1968; Karlıoğlu et al. 2008), but in all of these works, pollen and spores rather
than body fossils were used to determine the woody plants. Additional body fossil discoveries
regarding Constantinium and Tchihatcheffites will enable a taxonomic re-evaluation, and may even
suggest which spores/pollen of the relatively rich flora of the Terkos area represent these two plant
taxa. More remarks on the Quaternary coal occurrences around the Bosporus were published a year
later by de Tchihatcheff, who also mentioned two new Neogene oak species Quercus lignitum and
Quercus mediterranea identified by Unger from the Büyükçekmece district of Istanbul (de
Tchihatcheff 1864).
Studies concerning coal geology and mining in Turkey flared up in the early nineteenth
century following the discovery of black coal in the Carboniferous Zonguldak Coal Basin (Figure
1). Historically, Zonguldak is a small town in northwestern Anatolia which is still known for its
coal mines within the provincial limits; those deposits also extend to the neighboring provinces of
Bartın and the eastern section of Kastamonu. The coal basin is widely renowned for the name of
this town since Bartın (and the neighboring city of Karabük hosting the iron and steel plant founded
in 1937) was part of Zonguldak until the 1990s. Coal extraction in the basin was initiated during
the 1830s in Ereğli (formerly Heraclea) which is located in the western part of Zonguldak (Figure
1), and according to the Ottoman state fiscal reports, production began by February 1841 (Öğreten
2006). From 1842 to the collapse of the Ottoman rule, the black coal mines were managed by
different companies or by private persons. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century,
these companies and entrepreneurs were predominantly foreigners and they held concessions to
perform coal mining in NW Anatolia and also in other parts of Ottoman Turkey (e.g., Ertan 2007).
Such an early start of coal mining in Ereğli was also confirmed by Alexandre-Émile Béguyer de
Chancourtois (1820–1886), a French mining engineer and traveler who was a student of Léonce
Élie de Beaumont (1789–1874) at the École des Mines in Paris (Touret 2006). In a short
communication read in 1844, de Chancourtois briefly discussed the geology and environment of
southeastern and east-central Anatolia from Cizre to Tokat (Figure 1). At the end, he noted that he
would be going to Samsun first, then he would continue to Ereğli to see the coal formations and
the coal mines (de Chancourtois 1844).
The earliest reports on the geology and fossil content of these black coals were published in
the mid-part of the nineteenth century. A Prussian Bergmeister, a term that denotes a mine manager
who passed through a mining engineering school, from Silesia, Gustav Schlehan (1817–1879)
produced a detailed geologic report of the western part of Amasra (Schlehan 1852), now a district
of Bartın (Figure 1). Schlenan described five units in his work: “das Uebergangsgebirge”
(Transitional rocks), “die Steinkohlenformation” (Carboniferous), “die Juraformation” (Jurassic),
“Schuttland” (recent debris and alluvium), and “Plutonische Gebirgsarten” (plutonic rocks).
Schlehan also provided lists of invertebrate fossils he obtained from the pre-Carboniferous and
Jurassic strata; and for the Carboniferous rocks in which the coal deposits were found, he listed the
fossil plants he recovered from the modern-day Çınar Yolu Mevkisi and Tarlaağzı. The wide range
of plant fossils comprised lycophytes (Lepidodendron, Lepidostrobus, Sigillaria, Syringodendron,
Stigmaria, and Lycopodites), sphenophytes (Annularia, Asterophyllites, Calamites,
Sphenophyllum, and Volkmannia), ferns (Trichomanites), spermatophytes (Cardiocarpum and
Glossopteris) and some taxa now regarded as the foliage of the late Paleozoic land plants
(Cyclopteris, Neuropteris, Odontopteris, Pecopteris, Sphenopteris, and Trichomanites) (taxonomic
affinities of the cited taxa after Taylor et al. 2009; Pacyna 2012). Unfortunately, none of these taxa
were depicted in his publication.
Two more reports prepared by mining engineers followed that of Schlehan. The first one
was a technical report on the Ereğli coal mines prepared by two French mining engineers graduated
from École de Mines in Paris, Félix-Napoléon Garella (1809–1858) and Ernest-Jean-Étienne Huyot
(1831–1883). The prime concern of this report was the quality and availability of the coal and the
exploitation techniques; even though no fossil data were included, they provided the first general
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VOLKAN SARIGÜL
map displaying the coal deposits of the Zonguldak Coal Basin (Garella and Huyot 1854). In
contrast, the British mining engineer Henry Skeffington Poole (1844–1917) (Figure 3) briefly
discussed the presence of coal seams in northwestern Anatolia. He noted lignite traces around
Yalova and Lake Sapanca; then he travelled further east to Zonguldak where he described the black
coals and a few plant fossils (Stigmaria, Calamites and Sigillaria) he found within the coal (Poole
1856).
The plant fossils of the Zonguldak Coal Basin were better appreciated by paleontologists
towards the end of the nineteenth century. First, Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart, who was
previously mentioned as one of the paleontologists that cooperated with de Tchihatcheff in Asie
Mineure, identified the fossils collected by de Tchihatcheff between Ereğli and Amasra (de
Tchihatcheff 1866–1869). Then a decade later, more fossils were recovered by Admiral Spratt, who
had published on the Tertiary rocks around the Gulf of Izmir and confirmed the presence of
Neogene vertebrate fossils of Çanakkale. Robert Etheridge (1819–1903) (Figure 3) identified these
fossils and published his determinations subsequent to the remarks of Spratt (Spratt 1877; Etheridge
1877). Both Brongniart and Etheridge identified a handful of fossil genera that were already
described by Schlehan; Lepidophloios Sternberg, 1826 (or Lepidophlogos as cited by Brongniart),
an arborescent lycopsid from Carboniferous (e.g., Dimichele 1979), was the only additional genera
recognized by Brongniart.
During the latter part of the nineteenth century, the geology of the coal mines of the
Zonguldak Basin was scrutinized by an Ottoman mining engineer of Greek descent named Georges
Ralli (?–1936), also known as Yorgo Ralli in Turkey. His family roots were on Chios Island which
was an Ottoman territory at the time of his birth. Ralli graduated as a mining engineer from École
de Mines in Liège (Zeiller 1899; Tanman 1994). He became the head engineer for the Giurgiu
Company operating in the Zonguldak coalfields (Quataert 2006). Numerous specimens from the
coal mines of Kozlu (then Coslou) were collected by him, and his friend and colleague Miltiades
Armas (1861–?), (Figure 1). These specimens were sent to the mining engineer and paleobotanist
Charles René Zeiller (1847–1915) (Figure 3) in Paris for identification (Zeiller 1895). Based on the
determinations of Zeiller, Ralli distinguished three successive stages for the coal measures of
Zonguldak, the Alacaağzı, Kozlu and Karadon in ascending order (Ralli 1896, Zeiller 1899). These
three units are still in use at the formation rank, and together with the more recently coined Kızıllı
Formation on top, this quadripartite sequence roughly corresponds to the Namurian-Wesphalian
interval (Kerey et al. 1986). Alongside the already known lycophyte, sphenophyte, fern and
cordaitalean genera, Zeiller described the first new fossil plant species from Kozlu and named them
as Phyllotheca rallii and Pecopteris armasi for the two engineers (Zeiller 1895) (Figure 15). Two
years later, Zeiller (1897) erected two new taxa from the Ereğli fossil plant specimens sent by Ralli,
namely Discopteris rallii and Kidstonia heracleensis; the new genus name of the latter one was
dedicated to the Scottish paleobotanist Robert Kidston (1852–1924) (Figure 15). These two genera
were moved to Sphenopteris by Zeiller in 1899, and more new taxa were published from the
Zonguldak Coal Basin in the same work, including Sphenopteris limai and Sphenophyllum sewardi
which were dedicated to paleobotanists Wencheslau de Lima (1858–1919) and Albert Charles
Seward (1863–1941), whereas Sphenopteris bithynica, Alethopteris pontica, Plinthiotheca
anatolica and Sigillaria euxina were named after the ancient geographic provinces of Turkey
(Figure 15). These coal deposits continued to draw interest in the early twentieth century, even
during the First World War when a committee of Turkish and German officers examined the basin
in 1917 (Grancy 1939).
Further contributions of Georges Ralli to the geology, paleontology and ore mining of
Turkey should also be mentioned as a side note. More invertebrate fossil and rock samples collected
by Ralli from the vicinity of Ereğli were delivered by Armas to Joseph Henri Ferdinand Douvillé
(1846–1937), the professor of paleontology at the École des Mines in Paris at the time. In a short
note published in 1896, Douvillé briefly explained the stratigraphy of Ereğli; he recognized that
the Cretaceous rocks were resting unconformably on top of the Carboniferous carbonates and their
overlying coal measures. Furthermore, he correlated the geological framework of Ereğli with that
185
Figure 15. The first new plant taxa described from the Zonguldak Coal Basin (modified after Zeiller 1899). A. stem and
branches with cones belonging to the horsetail genus Phyllotheca rallii, where one of the cones is enlarged; B. whorled
leaves probed to the base of Phyllotheca rallii giving the shape of a reverse cone, and more branches with leaves of the
same taxon; C. primary pinna of Pecopteris armasi with secondary pinna enlarged twice; D. extremity of a secondary
pinna of Pecopteris armasi, E. Fronds of Discopteris (now Sphenopteris) rallii with lateral pinna enlarged four times; F.
fragment of a fertile stem of Kidstonia (now Sphenopteris) heracleensis; G. fragment of pinna of Alethopteris pontica, and
a pinnule of which enlarged twice; H. fragment of a frond of Sphenopteris limai, and one of its pinna enlarged by two and
a half times; I. fragment of a frond of Sphenopteris bithynica; J. fragment of a stem with leaf sheathes and detached
leaves of Sphenophyllum sewardi, one of the leaf sheathes enlarged twice; K. a trunk fragment of Sigillaria euxina; L.
fructification organ of Plinthiotheca anatolica, a portion of which is enlarged twice. Images are not to scale. The enlarged
portions of the specimens are encircled and indicated with an arrow.
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VOLKAN SARIGÜL
of the northern Balkans and further west (Douvillé 1896). In later life, Georges Ralli became more
obscure. He should had moved from Zonguldak to Balıkesir, to operate the Balya lead-zinc mine
sometime in the early 1900s, because in 1905, he attended the international fair on mining,
metallurgy and applied geology which was held in Liège as the director of exploitation of Balya-
Karaaydin mines (Anonymous 1905). In 1923, he obtained a concession from the Republic of
Turkey to build and operate a railway line connecting Balya to the Ilıca Pier on the Gulf of Edremit
(also known as Ilıca İskele-Palamutluk Railway, see TBMM 1941). But a few years later this
concession was transferred to Ilıca İskele-Palamutluk Demiryolu Türk Anonim Şirketi (an
approximate translation would be Ilıca İskele-Palamutluk Railway Turkish Joint Stock Company).
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, he invested in the construction of an iconic mansion
renowned as Ralli Köşkü on Büyükada, Istanbul, and lived there until the end of his life (Tanman
1994a). After changing hands a couple of times after Ralli’s death, this mansion burned down in
1956 (Tanman 1994a). Unfortunately, very little information about the life of this interesting man
is available and not even a single portrait of him has been found.
More plant fossils were published in the earliest twentieth century as well, including those
from the lignite deposits of Turkish Thrace (e.g., English 1904; Newton 1904).
2.9. The rebirth of the natural history museum (1870)
The initiative to establish a new natural history museum in Turkey materialized more than a decade
after the destruction of the natural history collection of the Imperial Medical School. Two short
communications by Abdullah Bey, which were addressed to the Geological Society of France and
to the French Academy of Sciences on the 6 May 1867 (Abdullah Bey 1867a, 1867b), informed
the community that his request for a natural history museum in Istanbul was already granted by the
current sovereign Abdülaziz (1830–1876), the son of Mahmud II who founded the core of the
Imperial Medical School. Moreover, getting assistance in identifying fossil specimens and setting
up firm collaborations with other natural history museums throughout Europe were the other
interests of Abdullah Bey during the time he spent in Paris. Finally, the Natural History Museum
of the Imperial Medical School of Istanbul, namely Le Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de l’École
Impériale de Médecine de Constantinople, was founded in 1870 and Abdullah Bey was appointed
as the director (Abdullah Bey 1872a; Günergun 2009). This museum, however, was not established
in a separate building; but instead it was probably located in a hall of Demirkapı Kışlası, a military
building used by the Imperial Medical School between 1865–1873 and 1878–1903 (Günergun and
Yıldırım 2001) (Figure 16A). Demirkapı Kışlası is still standing, and currently used by the Ministry
of National Defense (Figure 16B).
Figure 16. Two photographs of Demirkapı Kışlası, displaying: A. The exterior view from the seacoast taken by Abdullah
Frères in 1880 (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, call number LOT 11908, no. 43); B. The building
as it is today, with a view from the Golden Horn (by courtesy of Nadir Paksoy). Also note the Topkapı Palace on the
skyline of the modern photograph. Unfortunately, an image displaying the collection hall does not exist.
Even though the museum collection in June 1871 was composed only of his extensive
personal collection (including specimens of fossils, rocks, plants and insects, several figures, maps
and donated books) and a few remains saved from the dismantling of former natural history
187
collections, Abdullah Bey enriched the inventory by bringing a substantial amount of material from
Europe, predominantly from Vienna (Abdullah Bey 1872a; Günergun 2009). Such significant
improvement was best seen in the botany, geology (including paleontology) and entomology
sections. Initially, the botany section was richest by possessing 1725 samples in June 1871, which
was followed by 1600 specimens in geology and 100 specimens in entomology. In turn, these
numbers grew to 11,821 for geology, 5300 for entomology and 2725 for botany after the new
specimens were added. The number of books also more than doubled due to donations and counted
as 249. The dramatic increase in geology specimens was partly attributed to Abdullah Bey’s latest
excursions in which he recovered substantial amounts of Devonian invertebrate fossils along the
Bosporus. The condition of the museum inventory was so strong in 1872 that it was able to donate
a respectable number of specimens to European natural history museums (e.g., Montero 1998).
As with the geology courses in the curriculum of the Imperial Medical School, the natural
history museum of Istanbul was transferred to the House of Sciences in 1900 (Erguvanlı 1979).
The museum became affiliated to the Institute of Geology (Arziyat Dârülmesaisi) of the House of
Sciences which was founded in 1915 by Walther Penck (1888–1923) (Figure 17A), a skilled
German geologist who was invited to Turkey during the First World War (e.g., Pamir 1979;
İshakoğlu 1998; Yalçın 2011). Although Zeyneb Hanım Mansion in Eminönü District was the
original building of the faculty of sciences (Figure 17B), a new building, Abdülkerim Nadir Pasha
Mansion in Vefa District (Figure 17C), was purchased to relocate the new institute and the museum
collection (Pamir 1979). The museum collection became even more enriched with more material,
Figure 17. A. Walther Penck, the founder of the institute (after Kadıoğlu 2007), and the two buildings that housed the
Institute of Geology: B. Zeyneb Hanım Mansion (after Tanman 1994b) and C. Abdülkerim Nadir Pasha Mansion (after
Koçu 1958). Note that an actual photograph of Abdülkerim Pasha Mansion is missing; the one placed here is a sketch of
its burned rubble (Koçu 1958). According to Koçu, a factory watchman was living in a small, self-built shack inside the
rubble in 1944, as depicted in the foreground.
including the fossil and mineral collection of Abdülhamid II (1842–1918), the nephew and the
successor of Abdülaziz who was dethroned in 1908, and the mammal fossils from the Eskihisar
locality (e.g., Erguvanlı 1979; Ahmet Malik and Hamit Nafiz 1933; Sen 2016). Unfortunately, the
whole institute and the museum burned down completely in the fire that occurred on 28 August
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1918; only a handful of notes and samples which were out of the museum at the time have survived
(e.g. Penck 1919; Pamir 1979; Erguvanlı 1979; Kadıoğlu 2007). Sadly, the fate of this surviving
material is still unknown, with a few exceptions. For example, some Neogene plant fossils
recovered from the Black Sea coast of Istanbul were sent by Penck to Karl Nagalhard, a
paleobotanist whose life story has remained mysterious, for description (Nagalhard 1930;
Günergun 1995). The institute moved back to Zeyneb Hanım Mansion after the fire (Pamir 1979).
Besides the Natural History Museum of the Imperial Medical School of Istanbul, smaller
natural history collections were housed in Darüşşafaka, a Turkish school founded in 1873 in
Istanbul for primary and secondary education, and also in some missionary schools in Turkey
during the latest nineteenth and earliest twentieth centuries, including Lyceé Saint-Joseph, Lyceé
Saint-Benoît, Robert College and Getronagan Armenian High School in Istanbul, Anatolian
College in Merzifon and Central Turkey College in Gaziantep (e.g. Günergun 2019; İleri 2019;
Göçmengil 2019). Following the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, these schools were
either integrated into the national educational system or withdrawn from the country. Although
their specimens were severely reduced in numbers, the collections of the integrated schools, like
the high schools in Istanbul, are still in use for educational purposes.
2.10. Petroleum exploration in Ottoman Turkey during the latest nineteenth and earliest twentieth
centuries
Petroleum and natural gas originate from organic material, but unlike coal deposits, they form by
accumulation of soft parts of microorganisms subjected to a much stronger diagenetic phase.
Although no fossils can be found inside, a precise biostratigraphic scheme and
micropaleontological analysis are required to determine the reservoirs and many paleontologists
have been employed in the oil and gas sector from its beginning.
Historically, petroleum has been known since antiquity and the amount gathered from
natural seeps has been beneficial for various applications since then, as occurred in the Ottoman
Empire (e.g., Chesney 1850; Loftus 1855; Ainsworth 1888; Taşman 1949; Ediger 2006; Uluğbay
2008; Kılıç 2009). The demand for petroleum as a fuel appeared in the second half of the nineteenth
century, after the invention of engines functioning with petroleum derivatives (kerosene, gasoline,
and diesel). Consequently, many geologists and engineers became focused on the exploration for
petroleum all over the world. Likewise, a significant interest in petroleum exploration was aroused
in Ottoman Turkey towards the end of the nineteenth century (e.g., Taşman 1937, 1938, 1949;
Lokman 1958, 1969; Ediger 2006; Uluğbay 2008). The first authorized modern petroleum
exploration with chemical analysis and drilling in Ottoman Turkey occurred in Çengen (also known
as Aşağı Kepirce), now a small seaside village of Hatay Province in the Republic of Turkey (Figure
1). Following the discovery of a petroleum seep on an unknown date, possibly after the 1872
earthquake, analysis of the sample taken from the very seep in 1887 and an imperial decree was
issued in 1889 granting the concession for petroleum exploration to third parties in Çengen
(Taşman 1949; Ediger 2006). The first two possessors, Ahmet Necati Efendi and then Hasan Tahsin
Efendi, were Turkish citizens. Afterwards, this concession was handed over to a German-British
partnership which established the first petroleum company of Turkey, İskenderun Petrol Anonim
Şirketi (an approximate translation would be Alexandretta Petroleum Corporation). This company
drilled about 15 shallow wells by 1892, some of which with gas shows, but the operation was soon
abandoned due to unprofitability. The Çengen concession was officially terminated either in 1913
(Taşman 1949) or in 1916 (Ediger 2006).
The vicinity of Mürefte and Şarköy, two adjacent towns in Turkish Thrace, became the
second area in this respect (Figure 1). The first concession for petroleum exploration in this region
was given to an Ottoman citizen named Cavid Bey who founded the second petroleum company in
Turkey with Armenian and Greek associates soon after his discovery of a petroleum seep in 1892.
Unfortunately, this company failed due to economic difficulties without doing any prospecting for
petroleum. The concession was then granted to the Grand Vizier Halil Rifat Pasha (1827–1901) in
1897. Drilled wells were shallow and primitive; moreover, they were mostly dry or encountered
189
oil and gas shows only. The most profitable well was drilled by Alexander Adiassevich, a Russian
mining engineer; even though it was 89.5 meters deep and produced 2 tons of petroleum per day,
the flow ceased after a week. Additional studies regarding the petroleum and coal resources of
Turkish Thrace were conducted in the first decade of the twentieth century (e.g., English 1902;
Gasche 1958; Lokman 1969; Ediger 2006). Halil Rifat Pasha passed his concession to an Austrian
citizen in the early days of the First World War which was held by this person until 1926 (Taşman
1937, 1949).
Another early attempt was made in Pülk (now Balıklı) in Erzincan Province (Figure 1). The
first request for a concession was denied in 1889. It was then granted to a German citizen nine
years later, but the extraction process never started (Ediger 2006). Similarly, the petroleum seeps
in Kürzot (now Uluşar in Van Province) could not been undertaken with modern methods. Both
localities, and also Turkish Thrace, maintained their value right before and during the First World
War, and more places in Anatolia, like Trabzon, Boyabat (southern district of Sinop) and Bursa
(Figure 1), were explored in this period to find profitable oil fields (Taşman 1937, 1938, 1949;
Lokman 1969; Ediger 2006).
The area which now corresponds to the northern part of Iraq was the prize possession of all
(Figure 1). The petroleum seeps in Kirkuk had been operated by the Neftçi family for centuries.
They were a local family which got the first official petroleum concession in Ottoman Turkey, and
they undertook the first modern explorations in the late 1880s by the initiative of sovereign
Abdülhamid II who incorporated the petroleum fields of Baghdad and Mosul to the Civil List
(Lokman 1958, Ediger 2006; Uluğbay 2008). The interest of foreigners, especially that of the
British and German, to explore petroleum fields began with undercover attempts. In contrast, the
official concessions were given at the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, this part of
Ottoman Turkey (and the neighboring lands of Persia) were profoundly scrutinized not only in
terms of geology and well drilling but also with respect to geography, politics, and demography
(e.g. Schweer 1919).
Surprisingly, very few of the people involved in oil exploration and drilling in Ottoman
Turkey were paleontologists. The most notable one was Fritz Daniel Frech (1861–1917), a German
geologist and paleontologist (Figure 18A). Frech had his doctoral degree from the University of
Berlin with a dissertation dealing with the Devonian corals of Germany, and continued his career
by working mainly on the Paleozoic and Triassic rocks and fossils (Anonymous 1917). In 1904 and
1905, he examined the geology of the Baghdad segment of the Istanbul-Baghdad railway with an
emphasis on the petroleum potential (Taşman 1949). Frech’s interest in the geology of the Arabian
Peninsula continued in the following years and he served as a senior geologist for the Army
Command of the Syrian Front during the First World War, where he fell victim after few weeks
(von Schouppé 1961).
Figure 18. A. Portrait of Fritz

Daniel Frech (after Anonymous
1910); B. Portrait of Mustafa Sâtı
(after Toprak 2012b)
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VOLKAN SARIGÜL
2.11. The Second Constitutional Era (1908–1918) and prevalence of scientific education in
Ottoman Turkey
The Second Constitutional Era not only marked the end of the autocratic regime of Abdülhamid II,
the same monarch who proclaimed the First Constitutional Era in December 1876 and abolished it
in February 1878, but also signified a new era in the education policies of Ottoman Turkey. The
natural sciences, including geology and paleontology, had already been introduced to Ottoman
Turkey as mentioned above, but it is after 1908 that the concept of natural history, which
encompassed both geology and biology, and a more secular curriculum were widely adopted both
by secondary schools and institutions of higher education (e.g., Toprak 2012a). The concept of
evolution became more prominent as well, which was already acknowledged in a crude sense by
many Ottoman scholars as they learned about it from the texts produced during the Islamic Golden
Age and later. The Lamarckian and Darwinian theories had been discussed by other Turkish
intellectuals of the nineteenth century who were younger than İbrahim Edhem and Münif Mehmed
(e.g., Bahadır 2012; Toprak 2012a). The last generations of Ottoman Turkey, including those who
contributed to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, and also the first generations of the
republic were educated according to this secular curriculum.
One of the striking examples displaying the growing importance of natural sciences in the
final period of Ottoman Turkey was featured by Mustafa Sâtı Bey (1880–1968), also known as al-
Husri (Figure 18B). As a notable alumnus of the School of Politics (Mülkiye) and being widely
known for his political ideas, Sâtı was a successful educator as well (Toprak 2012a; Toprak 2012b).
He administered in Darülmuallimin (the institution that trained teachers in Ottoman Turkey) and
in Darüşşafaka, while he also lectured in his alma mater. He endeavored to use geology and biology
to modernize human-centered fields like anthropology, ethnology and sociology in Ottoman
Turkey. For example, he introduced the geologic time scale in his book Mebâdi-i Ulum-ı
Tabiiyyeden Tarih-i Tabiiyye ve Tatbikatı (Natural History and Its Applications, as Part of the
Introduction to Natural Sciences) which was published in 1912 (Mustafa Sâtı 1912). In his account,
the Precambrian was identified as the primitive stage with no organisms, followed by four
successive eras corresponding to the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic and Quaternary, in which the
organisms became more familiar to human recognition in each era. He also argued against
creationist history by stressing the fact that humans evolved in the final era. Considering that Sâtı
was lecturing in the institutions that taught in areas different than natural sciences, his efforts to
acquaint future teachers and politicians with natural history and geologic time was quite
remarkable.
3. FINAL WORDS ON PALEONTOLOGY IN OTTOMAN TURKEY
In addition to the individuals discussed here, many other pioneering geologists, naturalists and
travelers, including Antoine-François Andréossy (1761–1828), Victor Fontanier (1796–1857),
Félix Marie Charles Texier (1802–1871), Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich (1806–1886),
Ferdinand Römer (1818–1891) and George Washburn (1833–1915), have produced various maps
and reports in the nineteenth century concerning the geology and geography of Turkey (e.g., Ketin
1979; Şengör 2007). While the British and French schools were dominant in geological and
paleontological research of Turkey during most of the nineteenth century, the final stage of
Ottoman Turkey in the earliest twentieth century was characterized by political turmoil and the
increasing influence of the German school which had already begun in the late nineteenth century.
Such close relations were seen in geology as well, which resulted in the arrival of many German
and Austrian geologists and paleontologists to Turkey, including Walther Penck, Franz Toula, and
Gustav Edler von Arthaber (1864–1943) (e.g., Şengör 2007).
In summary, all the introductory works about geology and paleontology in Turkey were
accomplished by foreign scientists. The first geological map was prepared by Olivier in 1801 which
also happens to be one of the earliest geological maps in the world. The earliest modern geological
investigations initiated in the 1830s by Strickland and Hamilton were followed by Boué, de
191
Verneuil, de Tchihatchef and Viquesnel. The fossils collected in these early investigations were
identified by eminent paleontologists of the time, such as Murchison, Sowerby, d’Orbigny,
d’Archiac, Fischer, Haime, Brongniart, Valenciennes and Unger. The earliest scientific
identification of collected fossils occurred during the same time interval; descriptions of new
species started to be published by the mid-nineteenth century. The first ‘Turkish’ geologist,
Abdullah Bey was originally from Habsburg Austria and became an Ottoman citizen around 1850
as a middle-aged man. Aside from his other achievements in Turkey, he taught geology classes for
12 consecutive years, compiled a respectable collection of fossils, rocks, minerals, insects and plant
specimens, and founded a new and more prominent natural history museum in 1870. The first
geology textbook in Turkish was published in 1875 and it was the translation of his original
textbook. But most important of all, he was the only person in the whole Ottoman period who
published original research in paleontology.
Birthright citizens of Ottoman Turkey, on the other hand, were not interested in doing
genuine research in paleontology or in any other section of the earth sciences; they rather preferred
to convey the textbook information to students as a part of the curriculum. As a mining engineer
who took proper geology classes during his studies in Paris, İbrahim Edhem Pasha spared no efforts
to introduce fundamentals of geology, mineralogy, paleontology and geologic time in his public
lectures. Most of the lecturers of geology in the Imperial Medical School and the House of Sciences
did not have a geology degree as exemplified by the physician İbrahim Lütfi and the chemist Halil
Edhem Eldem. Nevertheless, Halil Edhem was clearly enthusiastic about geology and
paleontology; he accompanied Franz Toula on field trips and labored himself to identify the
Eskihisar fossils. As a side note, the first citizen of Ottoman Turkey with a PhD degree in geology
was Anastase Georgiadès, who was born in 1894 into a family of Greek descent in Istanbul (Şengör
1988). Georgiadès obtained his degree in 1918 in Zurich, after completing his doctoral thesis under
Professor Ulrich Grubermann (1850–1924) on the petrography of the eruptive rocks of Halmahera
in Indonesia (Georgiadès Bey 1918). The later years of Georgiadès are obscure; the only certain
thing is that he did not return to Istanbul, but instead moved to Athens with his mother. Hence, no
specialists could be trained in any field of geology in Ottoman Turkey, and as a consequence, a
Turkish school of thought in geology did not emerge until the University Reform of 1933 (Pamir
1966).
Similarly, the coal and petroleum industries in Ottoman Turkey were dominated by foreign
specialists. Humbaracı Ahmed Pasha (Comte de Bonneval), a noble refugee from France, was
responsible for the earliest recorded discovery of a coal seam in Ottoman Turkey. Following the
discovery of black coal in the Zonguldak Basin, prospecting and exploitation of these coals was
accomplished mainly by foreign mining engineers and geologists, where the obtained fossils were
determined by foreign paleontologists. The mining school established by İbrahim Edhem Pasha
could not endure for long and finally merged with the forestry school. Ottoman Turkey lagged
behind advances in the newly emerging petroleum industry during the second half of the nineteenth
century; even though some incompetent attempts of well drilling were executed by local
entrepreneurs, not a single specialist either in exploration or in drilling was trained in the country.
As a result of its tendency to give education in the areas of law, civil service and religion
rather than natural philosophy, the contributions of Ottoman Turkey to the earth sciences, including
paleontology, and related industries were negligible.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the editor John A. Diemer for considering the paper for publication and to the reviewers for
their care and insightful comments during the review. I am also thankful to Wendy Cawthorne and the
members of the History of Geology Group from the Geological Society for providing the available biographic
information for William Ridley Swan, to Jacques Touret for introducing the works of Alexandre-Émile
Béguyer de Chancourtois in Turkey, to Amélie Dessens and Ludovic Bouvier from ParisTech for sharing the
details about the early life of Miltiades Armas, to Feza Günergun for discussing the fate of the natural history
collection of Mekteb-i Tıbbiye-i Şahane, and to Nadir Paksoy for providing a current photograph of Demirkapı
Kışlası. I declare no conflict of interest related to this paper.
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VOLKAN SARIGÜL
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Paleontoloji Tarihi

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HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY, PART I

A SHORT HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY, PART I:

Unaffiliated, Çankaya 06000, Ankara/TURKEY

Keywords: Paleontology, fossil, natural history, geology, Ottoman, Turkey.

2. MILESTONES IN PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY DURING THE NINETEENTH

2.1. The first geological map displaying territory in Turkey (1801)

Some of Olivier’s observations are of importance in a paleontological context. As did earlier

Figure 8. The first described new fossil

Figure 14. Transversal

2.9. The rebirth of the natural history museum (1870)

Figure 18. A. Portrait of Fritz

3. FINAL WORDS ON PALEONTOLOGY IN OTTOMAN TURKEY

Aykut, E. 2019. Mekteb-i Tıbbiye Numunehanesi’ndeki anatomi koleksiyonları ve teratolojik numuneler.

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