Red Mosque (Berat)

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Minaret and foundation walls of the Red Mosque

The Red Mosque ( Albanian  Xhamia e Kuqe ) is a destroyed mosque in the city castle of Berat in southern Albania .

The mosque was built in the 15th century and was one of the oldest mosques in the country . It was probably built shortly after Berat was conquered by the Ottomans in 1417. The oldest written mention comes from 1431/32. The original names were Mosque of the Ruler and Mosque of Conquest .

The mosque is just outside the citadel inside the inhabited castle. In the early days, the mosque served the soldiers in the citadel. Later, a new Ottoman town with several mosques was built below the castle hill and the White Mosque was built inside the citadel . The Red Mosque was therefore no longer needed and fell into disrepair, as Evliya Çelebi reported in the middle of the 17th century.

The basic dimensions were 9.9 by 9.1 meters, above which there was a construction with a wooden roof. The minaret is unusually to the left of the entrance. A few meters up to the gallery are still preserved from the minaret. It is made up of layers of light limestone and red brick . Otherwise only about one meter high foundation walls are left of the building.

The Red Mosque was declared a cultural monument in 1961 .

Web links

Commons : Red Mosque  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Machiel Kiel : Ottoman architecture in Albania (1385–1912) . In: Research Center for Islamic History, Art and Culture (Ed.): Islamic art series . tape 5 . Istanbul 1990, ISBN 92-9063-330-1 , pp. 74 f .
  2. ↑ a b Guntram Koch: Albania. Art and culture in the land of the Skipetars . DuMont, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-7701-2079-5 , p. 209 (DuMont art travel guide).
  3. ↑ Objects fetare monumente kulture. In: Komiteti shtetëror për Kultet. Retrieved July 17, 2016 (Albanian).

Coordinates: 40 ° 42 ′ 26.1 ″  N , 19 ° 56 ′ 44.6 ″  E