Kırkgöz Han

The Kırkgöz Han (Turkish for Forty-Eyes Han) is a Seljuk caravanserai north of Antalya in the eponymous province in southern Turkey.

Location

The Kırkgöz Han is located in the district of Döşemealtı, about 25 kilometres northwest of the city centre of the provincial capital near the village of Bıyıklı, one kilometre south of the present highway E 87 from Antalya to Denizli. It is the second han on the road that connected Antalya with Konya, the capital of the Sultanate of Rum Seljuks. The first is the Evdir Han, about 15 kilometres to the south, followed by the Susuz Han 30 kilometres to the north.

History

According to a construction inscription at the southern entrance, the han was built during the reign of Sultan Giyaseddin Keyhüsrev II from 1237 to 1246. The founder and patron of the caravanserai erected as a ribat was ʿIṣmat al-Dunyā waʾl-Dīn, the third wife of Alaeddin Keykubad, Giyaseddin’s father. The exact year of construction is unreadable because of a damaged part of the inscription, but both the sultan and the patron are named. In style the han resembles the southern buildings of the sultan, the Șarapsa Han and the Kargı Han. They were probably built after the defeat in the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, at a time when the ruler was mainly in the south of the Taurus to avoid the advancing Mongols in Anatolia.

Structure

The building has a ground area of about 3000 square metres. About half of this is covered area, the open courtyard measures 33 × 52 metres. The entrance is on the south side. On the north side lies the closed part, a transverse hall of 11 × 60 metres with a barrel vault. It is divided by transverse arches into six equal sections. It can only be entered through a small door in the centre and is illuminated solely by small slit windows. In height it rises above the side building wings. These western and eastern complexes consist of arcades with six open cells each. To the north both are terminated by a larger closed room with a barrel vault. The eastern one was possibly, corresponding to the Kargı Han east of Antalya also dating from the time of Giyaseddin, the mosque. The south front consists of two closed rooms on either side of the entrance, presumably rooms for the guard staff. Each had a door opening onto the courtyard. The southern corners of the building form two further open cells.

The Kırkgöz Han shows little ornamentation. The stones are very cleanly worked, many of them bear mason's marks. The workstones of the portal are of higher quality than those of the walls. The gate is only decorated with an arch profile and with two inset columns with simple cube capitals. In the entrance niche, on a limestone block above the actual door, the construction inscription can be seen. 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 the translation by Scott Redford, she is called “the exalted lady, queen of the climes of the world, […] pearl of the crown of nations”. She is known from an inscription of 1232 in the Çarsi Camii in Uluborlu from the reign of her husband Alaeddin Keykubad, where she is referred to as Malika (ملكة), queen.

From 2007 the han was restored and can today be booked for events.