AYSIL TÜKEL ThVUZ

THE CONCEPTS THAT SHAPE ANATOLIAN SELJUQ CARAVAN SE RAI S

Caravan roads crossed Anatolia from east to west, from intact or have been restored; enough remains of the south to north, and from southwest to northeast, con­ majority to establish both plan and superstructure; a few necting trading centers both inside and outside the allow only a plan. The remaining hundred range from boundaries of the Anatolian Seljuq state (fig. 1).1 In the ruins to source references only. A large number have yet thirteenth century, the major centers were, in the south­ to be surveyed. A multitude of settlements have the east, Tabriz in Persia, Baghdad in Iraq, and Aleppo in word han attached to their names implying the exist­ Syria; in the south, Ayas, Alaiye, and Antalya on the Med­ ence of a there at some point in their his­ iterranean Sea; in the west, Ayaslug, Izmir, and Fop on tory. the Aegean Sea; in the northwest, Istanbul on the Bos­ Research over the last thirty-five years suggests that porus; and in the north, Sinop, Samsun, and Trabzon further research is likely to increase the number of on the Black Sea. I t was an established policy of the Ana­ known in a good state of preservation. tolian Se1juq state to stage the roads that connected Unfortunate1y the majority of the caravanserais either them with caravanserais.2 had no founding inscription or it has since disappeared, At present, information in varying amount and detail and of the ones that do exist not all mention the type of is available for about two hundred of these caravanse­ building. When they do, however, the word used is rais. About a hundred of them are extant, though in var­ either han or ribat and not kervansaray.3 Of the dated ying states of preservation (figs. 2-4): several are almost buildings, the earliest was constructed in 1206 and the

BLACK SEA

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\'_'~_""',., " I gdHoi~:~6 MAMA HATUN oErzurum KERVA NSARAYI. ,-­i [Tl "Sivc.S BURMA l., .HAN i Q .Mi=!ci NGE iSRAHiMSAH [Tl HAN .KERVANSARAYI " ,., 'SUL T':'N » SEVSEREK I z ÖRESiN °Koy~~~t .HAN , qSRUK .HAN 'Molotye ' ... -? HAN./ SUlJ~N (j) 'ESHAS-I K::Y~ DOKUZ~N .HANiI lAGZlKA-A HAN " [Tl .f:lOROZlU HA N...!~~N ~k$QrQY HArt. r..; , ____ ///i,/J'- __ ._._r:,/_\ » -AKHAN KIZIl aREN K~~~;t.y. 0K~~:~DIN HAN Nigde ·MorC$ SUSUz HAN .HAN UrfQ ,.'" ::VO"IR.KIRKGÖZ HAN '.,._- --_._._ .... -.. HA N • Anleire .KARGl HAN r--I _._._/_ .ALARAHAN r S.ARAPSA HA. N Alanye ~~) . ~~~LEC ,.' '.'., MEDITERRAN O

Fig. 1. Map ofTurkey showing the location of the khans. THE CONCEPTS THAT SHAPE ANATOLIAN SELJUQ CARAVANSERAIS 81

Fig. 2. Tuzhisar (1232-36) on the -Sivas Fig. 4. Öresin Han (13th century) on the Kayseri- Road. Road. The abutments on the front fa\,:ade (1969). Northwest corner (1968) . latest in 1778-79; the majority were built between 1220 include their use as government offices or statehouses and 1250, at the height of the Anatolian Seljuq state. for the sultan and his retinue when they moved from Caravanserais served caravans, but they also had a one town to another, especially between the capital multitude of other functions. It is gene rally agreed that and Kayseri, Sivas, as weil as Antalya and Alanya, they continued the function ofthe ribats in Transoxania, which served as winter residences.11 Their use as stations and therefore it is taken for gran ted that they had mil­ in the networks of the post, menzil, and derbent systems itary uses. 4 Ibn Bibi and Aksarayi both refer to hans in has also recently been established.12 the context of the movement of armies, but these refer­ Caravanserais constitute the second largest group of ences are often to the location of the khans rather than buildings after mosques in the Seljuq architectural heri­ to the buildings themselves, and there is no direct refer­ tage of . They are also the most numerous when ence to military activities taking place in the buildings." compared with contemporary caravanserais in other The same is true for references to welcoming and leave­ countries. They have been widely published starting in taking ceremonies for the sultans or their honored the nineteenth century, in travel accounts, as mono­ guests.6 They served as royal guesthouses for visiting sov­ graphs, in books on art history, and in an impressive cor­ ereigns/ as prisons,8 as places of refuge, 9 and when they pus by Kurt Erdmann.13 F. Sarre seems to have been the lost their commercial function, as zaviyes or for other first person to describe their various types. 14 He religious purposes.1O Functions not mentioned in the describes the Aksaray Sultan Han as having a courtyard sources on caravanserais, but verifiable by other means, and a closed section, and the Horozlu Han as being entirely closed.15 The description of these two khans was used as the basis for a typology first by H. Edhem,16 then by M.F. Ugur and M.M. Koman,17 S.K. Yetkin, D. Kuban, H. Karamagarah, and several others. Erdmann's typol­ ogy was published in 1955, six years before his corpus.18 It was widely accepted and used in the monographs of M. Akok and T. Özgü~, R.H. Ünal19 and many others. The major criterion for Erdmann's classification is the presence or absence of a courtyard.20 He lists types in order of importance as (1) khans with a closed section (hall) and a courtyard; (2) khans with no courtyard; and (3) court khans. His second classification criterion is the relationship between the size of the closed section and the courtyard; the third and fourth are the number and

Fig. 3. K.lZllören Han (1206) on the Konya-Bey~ehir Road. direction of the vaults in the closed section. Front elevation (1970). Even with the amount of information that was avail-