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The Adventure Of Copper
From Craft To Art
Written by: Semra UNLU
Translated by: Buşra EROĞLU
Although copper, whose history in
Anatolia goes back to 9th century B.C., is
revealed as one of the crafts that tends to vanish,
it still saves its significance. Kaya Kalaycı,
who is one of the member of a family that
carries out coppersmithing for four generations,
works for leading the craft of
coppersmithing and carrying it to the
future. We talked to Kalaycı and his family,
who cherished coppersmithing again
with the modern forms those he did with
the inspiration from Seljukian and Ottoman
motifs, about the adventure of coppersmithing
from craft to art.
Kalaycı geldi, kalaycııı.. 1
Not too far, just 20-25 years ago, the
exclamations of shammers (tinsmithes),
who travel from one city to another in
Anatolia in the company of the tin staff
with them, were heard. Women who
hear the shammers’ arrivals, stacked
the tin pots and pans those needed
to be tinned in front of the shammer.
The tinned cupric pots sparkled
like brand new as it was bought recently
and you could look at the pot and comb
your hair. Those were the days which
the copper didn’t leave their crowns
to steel or glass pots those are said
to be resistant to heat and the copper
masters still had the influence.
On those days when
meals were cooked in copper
pots and eaten in copper
“sahans” 2 , mothers
chose the copper masters
as “kısmet” 3 to their
daughters. If they said
that “Groom candidate
is a copper master”, mothers
thought there and said