The Seljuk Han of Anatolia

Architecture and decoration
 

My heart can take on any form:

A meadow for gazelles, a cloister for monks.

A sacred ground for idols, the Kaaba for the circling pilgrim,

The scrolls of the Torah, the book of the Qur’an.

It professes Love; wherever its caravan turns along the way,

Love is my law and love is my religion.

-Ibn Arabi, Islamic mystic poet (1165-1240)

 

• Establishing a plan typology for the Seljuk Han

• Building types: Classification by 4 plan types

• Covered section with open courtyard plan type: comparison of plans

• Covered section only plan type: comparison of plans

• Open courtyard plan type: comparison of plans

• Concentric plan type: comparison of plans

• Covered Sections

• Raised Platforms

• Courtyards

• Portals

• Mosques

• Kitchens and Cooking

• Water systems: sources, systems, fountains, latrines, cisterns, baths

• Architectural elements: rooms, windows, roofs, outer buildings, domes, towers

• Building materials: stone, masonry, spolia

• Decorative elements

• The state of hans today and some comments on historic preservation initiatives

   

  The services each han had to provide and which were accommodated by the architectural program varied in each han. These service areas were generally located in the courtyard, but others, such as loading platforms, were located in the covered setion. These service needs basically included the following:

   

  1.     Enclosed rooms and/or areas for sleeping
  2.     Loading platforms for loading and unloading of goods and for sleeping
  3.     Treasury and safe deposit boxes
  4.     Storerooms for merchandise of merchants
  5.     Haylofts
  6.     Sentry spaces (generally on the rooftops)
  7.     Stables (parking garage)
  8.     Hamams
  9.     Fountains
  10.     Latrines
  11.     Kitchens and cooking areas
  12.     Feeding and watering troughs
  13.     Administrative spaces: rooms for the innkeeper, treasury (like the minisafes in modern hotel rooms), guards
  14.     Storerooms for provisions of the han (larders, food stores, etc.)
  15.     Various service rooms: infirmary, cobbler shop for repairing shoes and making new ones, pharmacy

   

   

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