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ABSTRACT
With the development of the modern soap production techniques, traditional ways started to vanish. In the past, sabunhane, soap workshops, were built in the regions where there was olive-oil production. In Turkey, many soap workshops, large and small in scale, in the settlements where there was soap production. Until now, there has been no extensive study of the soap workshops in Turkey. This study identifies and documents the historical soap workshops in and around Nizip (Gaziantep) in south-eastern Turkey, which are important features of the region’s industrial heritage. Amongst these workshops, Nizip Sayınlar workshop, which was built in the 19th century with architectural features characteristic of the region, and which reflects the technological level of the period and processes of production, is described in greater detail. First, the distinctive architectural features of the soap workshops are analysed. The importance of soap production and its historical development are described, and the tools and techniques used in the production and relationship with the architectural space of the workshops are explained. A comparative study of the soap workshops located around Nizip is undertaken and some suggestions on the preservation of a few surviving soap workshops are provided.
Acknowledgements
We are pleased to express our gratitude to Architect H. Barış Gören, without whose help this project would not have been completed. His support and constructive guidance have been indispensable in the completion of this project.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
This article has derived from first author’s thesis entitled ‘A Restoration Proposal for Nizip Sayınlar Soap Workshop’, completed in the Restoration Program of the Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Dicle University, Diyarbakır.
1. Industrial heritage, defined thus:
[…] consists of sites, structures, complexes, areas and landscapes as well as the related machinery, objects or documents that provide evidence of past or ongoing industrial processes of production, the extraction of raw materials, their transformation into goods, and the related energy and transport infrastructures […] It includes both material assets — immovable and movable — and intangible dimensions such as technical know-how, the organisation of work and workers, and the complex social and cultural legacy that shaped the life of communities and brought major organizational changes to entire societies and the world in general.
2. Yılmaz, K., ‘Nizip ve Sosyo-Ekonomik Gelişme’, Master’s thesis, İstanbul University, Deniz Bilimleri ve Coğrafya Enstitüsü, İstanbul, 1990, 50.
3. Erdoğan, R., ‘Nizip İlçesi’nin Coğrafyası’, Doctoral thesis, Atatürk University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Geography, Erzurum, 2011, 346.
4. This workshop was demolished in 2015 in the course of this study.
5. Many of the historic structures in Nizip are used by low-income immigrants who fled from the war in Syria. These users are damaging to the structure due to misuse. For example, Syrian families living in the Nizip Sayınlar soap workshop have dismantled the wooden elements of the building and used them as fuel.
6. Öztürk, S., ‘Osmanlı Kültürel Mirasında Sabun’, Online Thematic Journal of Turkish Studies, I, 2 (July 2010), 80–93; Erdemir, P. & H. Hellen, ‘Roma Toplumlarında Tuvalet ve Temizlik’, Acta Turcıca — Online Thematic Journal of Turkish Studies, Yıl II, Sayı 2 (2010), 103–22.
7. ‘Sabun’, Büyük Larousse Sözlük ve Ansiklopedisi, 1992, 24 (19), 10028.
8. Çeşmecioğlu, S., Sabun Sektör Profili (Publication of İstanbul Chamber of Commerce, 2013), 3–4.
9. Öztürk, S., ref. 6, 82; Erdemir, P. & Hellen, H., ref 6, 103–22; ‘Sabun’, İslam Ansiklopedisi, Turkish Religious Foundation, İstanbul 1994, C. 10, 15.
10. Friedman M. & R. Wolf, ‘Chemistry of Soaps and Detergents: Various Types of Commercial Products and Their İngredients’, Clin Dermatol, 14 (1996), 7–13.
11. Gibss, F.W., ‘The History of the Manufacture of Soap’, Annals of Science, 4.2 (1939), 169–90. Gaziantep Cultural Inventory, 2005.
12. Meydan Larousse I-XII Sözlük ve Ansiklopedisi, Sabun, 12 (10); 1972, 805.
13. The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA), Soaps and Detergents, 2 (Washington, DC, 1994), 33, http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/assets/1/assetmanager/soapsanddetergentsbook.pdf (last accessed 15 January 2016); Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, Sabunun Hikâyesi, Colgate Palmolive Temizlik Ürünleri (İstanbul, 2003), 159.
14. Wolf, R., D. Wolf, B. Tüzün, & Y. Tüzün, ‘Soaps, Shampoos, and Detergents’, Clinics in Dermatology, 19 (2001), 393–7 (393).
15. Gibss, F.W., ref. 11, 169–90.
16. Türkiye Odalar ve Borsalar Birliği (TOBB) (Turkish Union of Chambers and Exchange Commodities) 2008. Türkiye Kozmetik ve Temizlik Sanayii Ürünleri Sektör Raporu. Access: http://www.tobb.org.tr/Documents/yayinlar/kozmetik.pdf (last accessed 16 June 2014); Çeşmecioğlu, S., ref. 8, 30.
17. Wolf et al., ref. 14, 393–6.
18. Meydan Larousse, ref. 12, 805.
19. Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 315–20.
20. Öztürk, S., ref. 6, 80–93; Uçar, H., ‘Ayvalık Tarihinde Zeytinyağı Üretim, Depolama ve Satış Binalarının Yeri ve Önemi’, Trakya University Journal of Engineering Sciences, 15.2 (2014), 19–28 (19–21).
21. Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 18; Kurmuş, O., Emperyalizmin Türkiye’ye Girişi (Ankara, 2007), Yordam Kitap: 36, 105–7.
22. Edit: Eroğlu, C., M. Babuçoğlu & M. Köçer, Osmanlı Vilayet Salnamelerinde Halep, ORSAM Ortadoğu Kitapları No. 2 (Ankara — Ekim 2012), 107.
23. In these inventories, more than ten soap workshops were recorded in İzmir. In 1913, seven soap workshops in İzmir produced 1,772,434kg soap, and in 1915, ten soap workshop produced around 2 million kilos of soap. In 1915, in the two soap factories in İstanbul, more than ten workers were employed and there were five motors with the horsepower of 49, and ten soap vessels, two of which functioned with steam and the remaining being simple vessels. By 1915, in total 192 workers were employed in these two factories. The total soap production of these two factories was 1,486,185kg. In the Ottoman Empire, what was produced was usually washing soap and green soap from bagasse oil. However, these two factories produced white soap. Soap imported from Syria was 5,266,307kg (Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 18).
24. Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 18–20.
25. Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 18–20.
26. Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 18–20.
27. Benlioğlu, N., ‘Sabun Ambalajlarında Tasarım Sorunları ve Dalan Sabunları için Bir Uygulama’, Master’s thesis, Hacettepe University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Graphic, Ankara, 2007, 194.
28. Çeşmecioğlu, S., ref. 8, 3–4; ‘Sabun’, 10028.
29. Gençal, G., ‘Hane Halkının El Temizliğine Yönelik Sabun Marka Eğilimlerinin Belirlenmesi ve Şişli İlçesinde Bir Pilot Araştırma’, Master’s thesis, İstanbul University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Marketing, İstanbul, 2004.
30. The 10% pulp of the olives after they are squeezed for their oil; İmamoğulları, İ. Halil, Geçmişten Günümüze Nizip (İstanbul: İşmont Kültür Press, 2002), 320.
31. Bottle/vessel made from the leather of animals, used to store cheese, oil, grape molasses, etc.; the measurement unit of oil is ‘corra’; when someone obtained 9 corra of oil, he was charged for 1 corra of his oil (İmamoğulları, İ. Halil, ref. 30, 320–2).
32. Abdulkadir Özkan, pers. comm., 27 September 2014.
33. Ocakoğlu, G.O. & M. Koraltürk, ref. 13, 159.
34. After 1938, permanent pouring areas made of timber or concrete, which were 1–1.1m wide and whose length varied according to the sizes of the workshop were used (Yetkin, H., ‘Gaziantep’te Sabunculuk ve Türkiye Sanayiinde Aldığı Yer’, Gaziantep Kültür Dergisi, 2 (1959), 198–200). It was first in Bakkal soap factory in 1938 that paper was laid under the soap loaves instead of earth. In 1943, Chamber of Commerce of Gaziantep banned the use of white earth in the shape of dust under the soap loaves (Yetkin, H., ref. 34, 198–200).
35. To allow the drying of the soap loaves in an equal manner and to avoid their easy collapse, loaves are arranged like a cylindrical cage (Abdulkadir Özkan, pers. comm., 2014).
36. Eker, H., ‘Nizip’teki Mimari Eserler’. Master’s thesis, T.C. Yüzüncü Yıl University, Institute of Social Sciences, Department of Art History, Van, 2006, 140.
37. In an olive oil mill with a centrifugal system, olive crushing is usually carried out with a moving or fixed hammer, a metallic breaker such as a toothed disc, a cone and a spool (Emicioğlu, Y.G, ‘Türkiye’de Zeytinyağı Üretiminde Kullanılan Yöntemler ve Makine Sistemlerinin Varlığı’, Master’s thesis, Namık Kemal University, Institute of Natural and Applied Sciences, Department of Biosystem Engineering, 2016, 21).
38. Abdulkadir Özkan, pers. comm., 27 September 2014.
39. Işık, M.P., Şehoğlu Sabunhanesi, Haytoğlu Sabunhanesi, Müftüoğlu Sabunhanesi Rölöve - Restorasyon Projeleri ve Antakya, Sabunhaneleri Raporu, 2013 (unpublished); Ahmet Okan Phohograph Archive; İmamoğulları, İ. Halil, ref. 30, 320–5, Bozgeyik Photograph Archive.
40. The photograph and drawings of Şeyhoğlu workshop and the drawings of Haytoğlu and Müftüoğlu soap workshops were taken from the archive of Architect Mehmet Pekcan IŞIK. The drawings of Kalaycılar soap workshop were taken from the archive of Gaziantep İl Ozel İdaresi (Architect Sıdıka Bebekoğlu), the photograph of Haytoğlu soap workshop was obtained from: http://antakyaturu.com/index.php?okod=213, 201.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Özge Bozgeyik
Özge Bozgeyik received her BSc degree at the Department of Architecture, Mersin University (2010) and her MSc degree at Restoration Program at Dicle University (2015). She currently works as a lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Hasan Kalyoncu University. Her areas of interest are the conservation and restoration of historical buildings.
Neslihan Dalkılıç
Neslihan Dalkiliç graduated from the Department of Architecture at Dicle University and received her MSc and PhD degrees from Restoration Program at Gazi University. She currently works as Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, Dicle University. Her research topics and areas of interest are the conservation and restoration of historical buildings, traditional construction techniques and vernacular architecture. Correspondence to: Nesilhan Dalkiliç