Güzelşeyh Kasrı ve Medresesi

Güzelşeyh Kasrı or Güzel Şeyh Kasrı is a kasır located in Altınakar.

History

No document concerning the construction date of the building, which archaeologist Eyüp Ay wrote was built in 1905, has been identified. A group belonging to the Department of Museums and Excavations, which operates under the General Directorate of Cultural Assets and Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, encountered the ruined building during a field tour they conducted while excavating Üçtepe Höyük. As a result of the correspondence carried out for the registration of the building, it was registered as an immovable cultural asset that must be protected according to laws No. 2863 and No. 3386 by decision No. 482 taken at the meeting of the Diyarbakır Regional Board for the Protection of Cultural and Natural Assets on 6 June 1990. In these correspondences, it was written that the building was used as a han. Architecture historian Meltem Tekin Bayram states that, based on a document dated 1898, Sheikh Kasım Efendi used the building as a medrese and tekke for 40 years and, considering that he died in 1895, the building was used for these functions from 1855.

The ownership of the building belonged to the Altınakar family.

It was registered as Group 2 by decision No. 397 of the Diyarbakır Regional Board for the Protection of Cultural Assets dated 28 March 2012.

Location and architecture

The building is situated in the Gelensu subdistrict of Altınakar village, which belongs to the Çınar district of Diyarbakır province, on a hill dominating the village and the plain. The ruined masonry structure today consisted of two floors, the ground floor and the first floor. The rectangular ground floor, measuring 22.30 × 38.50 m, extended in an east‑west direction. This floor had one entrance on the east and one on the west façades. The east entrance is destroyed while the west entrance is partially standing.

In the east‑west direction where the entrances opened, a rectangular‑plan corridor measuring 3.50 × 38.50 m extended. The height between the cradle vault covering this section and the floor was between 4.15‑4.35 m. On the long sides of the corridor, eight rectangular‑plan rooms are arranged and access to these rooms was provided by round‑arched openings. The rooms on the north side had two windows on the north façade, and the rooms on the south side had two windows on the south façade. The outer wall was built of basalt and covered with mud‑based plaster, and the thickness of the walls varied between 95‑100 cm. In the surrounding, arch and upper parts of the doors opening to the rooms, thin limestone was used in the east‑west‑oriented belt sections. The floor of the floor was covered with thin limestone over basalt. The doors and walls of the first two opposite rooms on the west side stand, while the third rooms are partially standing. Almost the entire remaining part has collapsed down to the foundation level and remains underground. Counting from the west, the spiral staircase located in the fourth room on the north, which provided access to the first floor, is also collapsed. The load‑bearing walls of this staircase were thin limestone, and its steps were thin limestone over basalt.

One wall and the ceiling of the room measuring 3.60 m × 7.50 m in the north‑west corner of the ground floor are completely destroyed, and two walls are partially destroyed. The door dimensions are 93 × 238 cm from the interior and 82 × 205 cm from the exterior. Of the two windows in the room, the only remaining window standing has dimensions 74 × 176 cm from the interior and 62 × 130 cm from the exterior. The room to the east of this area measures 3.70 m × 7.40 m and its two walls and ceiling are partially destroyed. The room door is 92 × 230 cm from the interior and 80 × 199 cm from the exterior. The two windows on the north wall measure 75 × 176 cm from the interior and 62 × 132 cm from the exterior. The room to the east of this room has three walls, the ceiling and the windows completely destroyed, and the entrance measures 94 × 226 cm from the interior and 82 × 200 cm from the exterior.

The room located in the south‑west corner of the ground floor has floor dimensions of 3.65 × 7.35 m and one wall is partially destroyed. The room has an entrance measuring 92 × 230 cm from the interior and 80 × 199 cm from the exterior; on its south wall there are two large windows and one clerestory window, and on the west wall there are two clerestory windows. The large windows on the south measure 75 × 180 cm from the interior and 63 × 132 cm from the exterior, the clerestory window measures 52 × 64 cm from the interior and 19 × 47 cm from the exterior. The clerestory windows on the west measure 50 × 64 cm from the interior and 16 × 46 cm from the exterior. The room situated directly east of this room, whose one wall is partially destroyed, measures 3.65 × 7.35 m. Its door dimensions are 91 × 231 cm from the interior and 80 × 202 cm from the exterior, and the two windows on the south wall measure 75 × 181 cm from the interior and 65 × 132 cm from the exterior. The room partially standing and located east of this room has its walls and entrance completely destroyed. The room with floor dimensions of 3.70 × 7.35 m has a single standing window on the south wall, measuring 75 × 178 cm from the interior and 65 × 132 cm from the exterior.

The walls of the first floor, which has a rectangular plan measuring 22.60 × 5.35 m, have a thickness varying between 60–80 cm. The first‑floor walls, built with the box‑wall technique and in two layers, have a thin layer of lime on their exterior faces and rubble and mortar in the interior parts. Today the floor’s ceiling and the doors opening to the rooms are completely intact, while part of the exterior walls and the flooring are largely ruined. On the west side of the floor there are two pavilion rooms with rectangular plans extending in a north‑south direction. The room in the northwest corner has floor dimensions of 4.00 × 7.75 m, while the short side of the room in the southwest corner is 4.05 m and the long side is indeterminate. These two rooms are separated from each other by a space that extends in an east‑west direction and divides them. Although many of the structural elements of the spaces on the first floor are missing, there are windows and niches of similar dimensions.