TURKEY TRAVEL GUIDE
In
spite of the fact that the Syrian king Antiochos III signed the Apamea
peace treaty in 188 B.C. after his defeat at Magnesia by the Rome-Pergamum
alliance, the dispute over borders had not been resolved. Not only was
Pamphylia of great importance to Pergamum and its powerful fleet, but
Pergamum also felt a pressing need for a harbour to shelter its navy
after its failure to capture Side. It is for this reason that Pergamum's
King Attalos II (reigned 159-138 B.C.) with the aim of establishing
a naval base, founded Attalei, giving it his own name. It is possible
that the town was an expansion of an older settlement or built on top
of a pre-existing one. The city of ancient Olbia, which has been localized
to the vicinity of the present Gurma Köyü 5 km. west of Antalya,
according to its coinage, was an ancient centre, reaching back to 5
B.C. With the founding of Attaleia, Olbia, reduced to the level of a
suburb, lost its importance, and its residents are presumed to have
made up the populace of Attaleia.
Known in antiquity as Attaleia, the city appears as Adalya in eastern sources, including most Turkish works, as Adalia or sometimes Satalia in western records, and as Antalya today.
We do not have a continuous record of the city's history. With the king of Pergamum's transfer of his territories to Rome in 133 B.C., Attaleia became independent for a time, later becoming linked to the Cilician state. St. Paul's visit to Attaleia by way of Perge in 46 A.D. was a major event in the city's history. It is known that the city reached the peak of its prosperity as an important trade centre in the second century. A.D. and that it was enhanced with new monuments commemorating the Emperor Hadrian's visit in 130 A.D.
In addition to being a naval base from the day of its founding, Attaleia, because it was situated at the starting point of roads leading to the high plateaux of central Anatolia, continued to be a busy commercial port well into Byzantine times. Attaleia replaced Perge as a metropolis when the latter lost the title after the sixth century B.C.; this suggests that the city may have predominated because of its importance as a religious centre. From the mid-seventh century however, the spread of Arab naval domination struck a heavy blow to the Byzantines in the Mediterranean and was the reason Attaleia occasionally slipped out of their hands.
After Antalya was annexed to Turkish held lands by the Seljuk sultan Giyaseddin Keyhusrev in 1207, the area witnessed another great period of development and was adorned with works of Seljuk architecture, some of which can be seen today.
Heading the list of remains still standing in Antalya are its city walls. These horseshoe-shaped fortifications gird the harbour and the ancient city surrounding it. They were built on second century A.D. Hellenistic foundations on the walls we know that the Seljuk in particular made major changes, renovating a large section, and adding towers to bring the walls into conformity with their own concepts of military strategy. The famous Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi reports that when he visited Antalya in 1671 there were 80 towers along the wall, that it had a circumference of 4.400 paces, and that enclosed within it were neighbourhoods of narrow streets containing almost 3,000 houses. It is a pity that under the pressures of rapid urbanization in our day a large part of the walls and towers have been destroyed.
Of the wall's entry gates only one has survived to the present. This gate of honour, erected to commemorate Hadrian's visit to Antalya, has an appearance typical of a Roman triumphal arch, with two colonnaded facades and three entry arches rising above four pylons. The triumphal arch was a new structural form developed by Roman architects and built in honour of emperors. Statues of the emperor and his family were placed above the arches, and it was believed that this armies were purified of the blood they had shed in battle when they passed under the arch. On both faces of this triumphal arch, the architrave extends uninterrupted above the arches and columns; the frieze and figures are carved in rich relief. The three passages are covered by casement vaults decorated with floral and rosette reliefs. In the course of a successful restoration project carried out in 1959, certain architectural elements have come to light which indicate that the monument consisted of two levels. Two towers of different construction were found, one on either side of the gate. The tower on the left front of the arch belongs to the Roman era, while that on the right, as indicated by its inscription,dates to Seljuk times.
In the city's park an interesting monument known as Hidirlik Kulesi is situated at a spot overlooking the sea at the southern corner of the fortifications where the land and sea walls meet. The tower, reaching a height of 14 metres, is comprised of a high fortress of square plan surmounted by a cylindrical trunk. A rectangular door in the eastern side opens into a small chamber. Narrow stairs lead from the side of the chamber to the upper floor. From existing evidence it appears that the tower was covered with a peaked roof. The reason for the tower's construction is still the subject of argument. Although it resembles Roman period mausoleums in plan, it more likely served as a lighthouse and watchtower for the harbour. Its architectural character and stonework can be dated to the second century A.D. but certain Byzantine surface repairs to the upper level are immediately apparent.
Another work popularly known as Kesik Minare (Truncated Minaret), is especially interesting, because its building history stretches all the way from Roman to Ottoman times. Atop the second century A.D. foundations of a temple to Serapis built in tholos form, is a large church constructed in the sixth century, using architectural elements from the temple. This church, destroyed during the Arab raids in the seventh century, was repaired in the nineth with reinforcements and certain additions. In the Seljuk period the building was converted to a mosque but was turned back into a church of basilica from when Antalya passed into the hands of Peter I, the King of Cyprus, in 1361. Finally, during the reign of Beyazid I, Prince Sehzade Korkut added a minaret to the south-west corner and reconverted the building into a mosque, which is referred to by his name. Open to worship until a late date, it suffered severe damage as a result of a major fire and was finally abandoned.
The Turks, who began to settle in Anatolia from the second half of the eleventh century, soon created an architecture suited to their Islamic faith and the structure of their own society. In this formative period the style was heavily influenced by earlier architecture produced in a variety of Anatolian regions. Anatolian Turkish architecture produced buildings fulfilling a number of functions, foremost being mosques and medresses, followed by tombs, baths, and caravanserais. These buildings are sometimes separate and sometimes are built together to form a complex known as a külliye.
The thirteenth century, accepted as one of the greatest periods in Anatolian Turkish architecture, was the construction of important works in Antalya. The Yivli (Fluted) minaret, which has become the symbol of Antalya, and the building complex around it, have the appearance of an open-air museum of Turco-Islamic civilization. This minaret, the oldest Seljuk monument in Antalya, was commissioned by Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I (reigned 1219-1238). The fluted body of the minaret, which rises above a square stone base to a total height of 38 metres, is decorated with dark blue and turquoise tiles. On the north side, a climb of 90 steps leads to the minaret's balcony of serefe. The müezzin of the mosque mounts the stairs to the balcony five times a day to summon Moslems to prayer.
The mosque adjacent to the Yivli minaret, from which it takes its name, was built in 1373 by Mubarizettin Mehmet Bey, according to an inscription on the building. This structure,which is covered by six domes, is one of the earlier examples of the multi-domed type in Anatolia.
A beautiful monument located in the Yivli minaret complex is a türbe or tomb of Seljuk type built in 1377 in the name of one Zincirkiran Mehmet Bey. The tomb, of ashlar masonry construction throughout, is covered by a roof that is domed on the interior and a peaked octagon on the exterior. It contains three sarcophagi.
In another türbe, different from the first in character, Nigar Hatun, the wife of Sultan Bayezid II, is buried. The tomb is dated 1502.
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