Kırkgöz Han

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Coordinates: 37 ° 6 ′ 42 ″  N , 30 ° 35 ′ 8 ″  E

Relief Map: Turkey
marker
Evdirhan
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Turkey
South facade

The Kırkgöz Han ( Turkish for forty-eyes Han ) is a Seljuk caravanserai north of Antalya in the province of the same name in southern Turkey .

location

The Kırkgöz Han is located in the District Döşemealtı , about 25 kilometers northwest of the center of the provincial capital near the village Bıyıklı , one kilometer south of the present highway E 87 from Antalya to Denizli . He is the second Han on the road that connected Antalya with Konya , the capital of the Sultanate of the Rum Seljuks . The first is the Evdir Han , about 15 kilometers south, followed by the Susuz Han , 30 kilometers north .

history

According to a building inscription in the southern entrance, the Han was built during the reign of Sultan Giyaseddin Keyhüsrev II from 1237 to 1246. The founder and builder of the caravanserai built as Ribat was ʿIṣmat al-Dunyā waʾl-Dīn, the third wife of Alaeddin Keykubad , Giyaseddin's father. The exact year of construction cannot be read due to a damaged part of the inscription, but both sultan and patroness are named. The design of the Han is similar to the southern buildings of the Sultan, the Șarapsa Han and the Kargı Han. They were probably built after the defeat in the battle of the Köse Dağ in 1243, at a time when the ruler stayed mainly south of the Taurus to avoid the Mongols advancing into Anatolia.

construction

Building inscription

The building has a floor area of ​​around 3000 square meters. About half of this is covered area, the open courtyard measures 33 × 52 meters. The entrance is on the south side. On the north side is the closed part, a transept of 11 × 60 meters with a barrel vault . It is divided into six equal sections by belt arches . It can only be entered through a small door in the middle and is only illuminated through small slit windows. In height, it towers over the side building flanks. These western and eastern complexes consist of arcades with six open cells each. In the north, both are closed off by a larger, closed room with a barrel vault. The east was possibly the mosque, corresponding to the Kargı Han east of Antalya, also from the time of Giyaseddin. The south front consists of two closed rooms on both sides of the entrance, presumably rooms for the security personnel. They each had a door from the courtyard. The southern corners of the building form two more open cells.

The Kırkgöz Han has little ornamentation. The stones are very neatly worked, many of them have stone carving marks . The stone of the portal is of a higher quality than that of the walls. The gate is adorned only by a sheet profile and by two recessed columns with simple cube capitals . In the entrance niche, the building inscription can be seen on a limestone block above the actual door. With a length of six lines, it is the longest in the surviving Seljuk caravanserais. It provides information about the Sultan and his travel equipment with crown, flag and belt as well as about the founder ʿIṣmat al-Dunyā waʾl-Dīn. According to Scott Redford's transmission, she is referred to as "the exalted lady, queen of the climes of the world, [...] pearl of the crown of nations". She is known from an inscription from 1232 in the Çarsi Camii in Uluborlu from the reign of her husband Alaeddin Keykubad, where she is referred to as Malika (ملكة), Queen.

The Han was restored in 2007 and can now be booked for events.

See also

List of Seljuk Hane in Turkey

literature

  • Scott Redford: The Inscription of the Kırkgöz Hanı and the Problem of Textual Transmission in Seljuk Anatolia In: ADALYA XII, 2009 , Antalya ISSN 1301-2746 pp. 347-359.

Web links

Commons : Kırkgöz Han  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files