Open File No. 001 · Tarsus, Ottoman Empire · March 1893
An English antiquarian claims he has found the lair of the Queen of Serpents beneath an old bathhouse. Two nights later he is gone, and a serpent's skin lies where he was last seen. The town blames the legend. The papers say otherwise.
| I The disappearance Opens Mon, Nov 23, 08:00 PM · Free | ||
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Letter from the Vice-Consul | Sealed |
| 02 | The Legend of the Şahmeran | Sealed |
| 03 | The Cilician Courier, 18 March | Sealed |
| 04 | Persons of Interest | Sealed |
| II The last evening Opens Tue, Nov 24, 08:00 PM | ||
| 05 | Diary of Dr. Whitcombe | Sealed |
| 06 | Statements: Yusuf & the stoker | Sealed |
| 07 | Coffee-house keeper & anonymous letter | Sealed |
| III Alibis Opens Wed, Nov 25, 08:00 PM | ||
| 08 | Halil Efendi & his travel pass | Sealed |
| 09 | Statements: Dr. Ralli & Zehra Hanım | Sealed |
| 10 | Statement of Mlle. Varenne | Sealed |
| 11 | Hôtel d'Orient account | Sealed |
| IV Paper trail Opens Thu, Nov 26, 08:00 PM | ||
| 12 | Telegram, Tarsus to Paris | Sealed |
| 13 | Pharmacy poison register | Sealed |
| 14 | Plan of the Old Bath & mason's note | Sealed |
| 15 | Manifest of the S.S. Marguerite | Sealed |
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Tarsus sits on the Cilician plain where the Cydnus river (today the Berdan) runs down from the Taurus mountains. It is one of the oldest continuously lived-in towns in Anatolia: Cleopatra sailed up the river to meet Mark Antony here, and the apostle Paul was born here. A Roman-era stone gate, still called Cleopatra's Gate, stands in the town.
Tarsus belonged to the Ottoman province (vilayet) of Adana. Cotton made the plain rich in the late 1800s, and a railway linking the port of Mersin, Tarsus and Adana opened in 1886. Merchants, consuls and collectors from Europe passed through Mersin; the town itself was home to Muslim, Armenian, Greek Orthodox and Arab Christian families.
A Turkish bath runs from cool to hot: the camekân (dressing hall), the soğukluk (cool room), the sıcaklık (hot room), and behind it the külhan, the furnace kept by the külhancı, the stoker. Water was stored in cisterns. If the furnace is cold, the bath is shut.
Travelling inside the empire required an internal pass, the mürur tezkeresi, stamped on departure and arrival. Money was counted in kuruş (piastres); a gold lira was 100 kuruş and a silver mecidiye coin 20. The Ottoman telegraph had linked major towns since the 1850s. Many people told the hours of the evening by the call to prayer: yatsı is the night prayer.
The Şahmeran, half woman and half serpent, queen of the snakes and keeper of the knowledge of healing, is told of across Anatolia and Mesopotamia, and her images still decorate homes in towns like Mardin. Tarsus claims the story as its own: here, they say, a vizier hunted her for a cure, and she died in a bath. Read the full version in Document 2.
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Private notes. They stay in this browser.
Guide and interpreter, 24
Owner of the Old Bath, 61
Physician, 45
Dealer in antiquities, 34
Snake-charmer and herbalist
Stoker of the Old Bath