Ottoman archery with socio-cultural aspects in the case of Okmeydanı Archery Lodge: 18th and 19th centuries

Archery is one of the most unique activities of Turkish culture. It is seen that this activity, beyond being a military term in Turkish political philosophy, also spread to the fields such as law and diplomacy. The inclusion of Traditional Turkish Archery in the UNESCO's "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" list in 2019 has considerable increased the favor towards this field and, in parallel, the number of academic publications. However, it is seen that these academic studies generally focus on the cultural and technical backgrounds of archery. Therefore, the place and importance of the terms arrow and bow in pre-Islamic Turkish culture and the metaphors they correspond to in the first written sources and various epics are the most frequently discussed topics. In addition to this, together with the studies dealing with the religious aspect of archery, subjects such as arrow and bow making stages, manufacturing techniques, stance, grip and shooting positions have been studied over and over again. In addition, there are many publications stating that the range stones and engagement stones erected in various parts of Istanbul, together with Okmeydanı and the Archery Lodge located here, should be preserved as a historical value. In this thesis, the social and economic background of Ottoman archery, which is out of the above-mentioned issues and therefore a gap in the literature, and the institutions where archery is practiced will be examined. In this way, archery will be handled from a holistic perspective, both as a sectoral activity in terms of being a collective line of business, and as an institutional activity in terms of being a functioning institution. As a result, the historical sources, producers and institutions of Ottoman archery will be researched separately, and what the perspective towards sports was and how it changed in the Ottoman Empire, how a sports club was run and how the craftsmen in the production lived, will be revealed in the context of Ottoman archery. When viewed from this perspective, the text created as a whole, in a way, is the 18th of the change in the century and 19th It is the story of its death in the century.