Kirkgoz Han – What to See

It is on the Antalya-Burdur route and in Kırkgöz location. Kırkgöz Han, which was repaired in 2009, is currently used as a tourist facility. The inn, which sits on a rectangular seating area extending in the north-south direction, was built in two building masses with spaces arranged around a large courtyard and a closed shelter section. The exterior walls of the inn are supported by square prismatic shaped buttresses and corner towers designed as masses reaching up to the height of the facade and projecting outwards.

The crown gate in the middle of the south façade is designed as a horizontal rectangular prismatic mass extending outward, rising above the façade walls. It consists of an iwan opening to the façade in the form of a pointed arch flanked from the sides and top by wide borders and mouldings, left plain and unprocessed.

The rectangular planned courtyard, which is included with the entrance iwan covered with a pointed barrel vault, which is accessed through the low arched door opening of the crown gate, is a large area surrounded by closed and semi-open spaces. On the east and west sides, there is a double-row portico that sits opposite each other on square-planned legs and is connected to each other and to the walls with pointed arches, opening to the courtyard. The two rooms facing each other in the northwest and northeast corners of the courtyard are rooms covered with pointed barrel vaults. The two rooms in the south wing of the courtyard and adjacent to the crown gate on both sides are covered with pointed barrel vaults extending in the east-west direction.

During the repair of the inn, the mouth of a cistern was unearthed in the middle of the courtyard and under the ground level, and the remains of a ceramic kiln were found in the southeast corner of the courtyard. The closed shelter section, which is included with a low-arched door opening in the north wing of the courtyard and in the middle of the facade, is a continuous space extending in the east-west direction and covered with a pointed barrel vault. The belly of the vault is reinforced with six pointed arches extending in the north-south direction.

It is known that the founder of the building, which is described as ribat in the six-line inscription on the courtyard crown gate, is İsmetü’d-Dünyâ ve’d-Dîn. Seljuk Sultan II. It is known that İsmetü’d-Dünyâ ve’d-Dîn, the daughter of Kılıçarslan’s son Mugiseddîn Tuğrul Şâh, was mentioned as the patron in the construction inscription dated 1232, written in thuluth calligraphy on marble, which was taken from its place after the fire that occurred at the northern gate of the Alâeddîn Mosque in Uluborlu in 1909 and moved to the Public Education Center. According to the Kırkgöz Inn inscription, the building was built by Seljuk Sultan II. Although it is stated that it was built during the time of Gıyâseddîn Keyhüsrev (AD 1237-46), only thirteen are written in the last line of the inscription containing the date. The inscription in question is from Sultan II. It is an original and unique example, as it depicts Gıyasettin Keyhüsrev as the owner of the crown, standard and sash, which were never seen among the previous Seljuk rulership symbols, and at the same time, the function of the ribat built was stated as a place to host those traveling from east to west for the first time.