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Antalya's Seljuk Road of Hans

On Antalya's tourist map the Seljuks seem to amount to the Yivli Minaret in Kaleiçi.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye15 Ekim 2026
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Antalya's Seljuk Road of Hans

On Antalya's tourist map the Seljuks seem to amount to the Yivli Minaret in Kaleiçi. Yet the real trace of the thirteenth century lies outside the city: two caravanserais on the road up to Burdur and one in the valley behind Alanya are the stone documents of the trade that tied the port to the interior. Evdir Han, Kırkgöz Han and Alara Han were built within thirty years, in the first half of the same century; the three have three different plans, three different patrons and today three different fates. This article first tells how the port passed to the Seljuks, then describes the hans in road order and says how each is reached today.

The port and the road after 1207

According to the Antalya entry of the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev I took the city on 5 March 1207 and appointed Mübarizüddin Ertokuş as governor. The city did not stay in Seljuk hands for long; in 1212, after the local Christian population rose with the support of the King of Cyprus, it passed to the Cypriots, and İzzeddin Keykavus I retook it on 22 January 1216 and made Ertokuş governor once again. The Antalya Metropolitan Municipality's Kaleiçi inventory also records that Kale Kapısı is first mentioned in historical writing by İbn Bibi precisely in connection with these two sieges, of 1207 and 1216. The same encyclopaedia entry writes that the conquest began to turn the city into a Turkish-Islamic town, that the trade agreement with the Latins of Cyprus revived the economy and that a shipyard was built in the harbour in the reign of Keykavus. In 1221 Alaeddin Keykubad I took the castle of Kalonoros, held by Kyr Vart, a vassal of the Armenians of Cilicia, after a two-month siege, and ordered that the castle be called Alaiye after himself and that a shipyard be built. Thus two Seljuk ports were born on the Mediterranean, and hans lined up along the roads connecting both to inner Anatolia, to Konya and westward via Burdur. All three buildings are products of this context.

Evdir Han, the oldest

Leaving Antalya towards Burdur, the first han is Evdir. The TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam places the building about 18 kilometres north-west of Antalya, near the village of Yeşilbayır, on the old Antalya-Burdur caravan road. Its inscription is no longer in place; it was read in 1928 by R. Riefstahl, and it emerged that the han was built in the reign of İzzeddin Keykavus I, between 1211 and 1220. The page of the Döşemealtı District Governorship gives the date 1219; since both sources agree on the same sultan, "the 1210s" is the most accurate thing to say. Built a few years after the city was retaken, the han is Antalya's oldest Seljuk caravanserai.

Its plan is unusual for Anatolia. The building has an open courtyard with four main iwans; the Encyclopaedia writes that two examples of this type are known in Anatolia, the other being Han el-Barur near Harran. Its external dimensions are 54 by 67.60 metres and its courtyard 34.50 by 45.10 metres; the outer walls are supported by ten corner buttresses. The portal on the south facade projects outward, is made largely of marble, and its muqarnas niche is decorated with geometric motifs. The District Governorship says the han was the last lodging before reaching Termessos. Its present state is the worst of the three; the Encyclopaedia describes the building as "very neglected". The Döşemealtı Municipality and the Faculty of Fine Arts of Akdeniz University are carrying out a joint project to revive the han; after restoration it is planned to host cultural events and to house a museum. When you go you will see the marble portal and the wide emptiness of the courtyard; most of the vaults have collapsed, so walk carefully among the fallen stones.

Kırkgöz Han, the restored one

Continuing north on the Burdur road you come to the Kırkgöz locality, at the head of the Pınarbaşı springs. Kırkgöz Han, as described by the Culture Portal and the District Governorship, lies on the Antalya-Burdur route within the boundaries of the Bıyıklı neighbourhood. It sits on a rectangular area running north-south and carries the classic scheme of a Seljuk sultan han: the spaces arranged around a wide courtyard and the closed shelter on the north of the courtyard were built as two separate masses. The outer walls are supported by buttresses of square prism form and corner towers. The portal in the middle of the south facade is a projecting mass rising above the facade wall; it opens like a pointed-arched iwan framed by plain borders, and from the low-arched doorway one passes into the courtyard through an entrance iwan with a pointed barrel vault. On the east and west sides of the courtyard are double rows of arcades resting on square piers, with vaulted rooms in the corners. The closed section is a single pointed barrel vault running east-west, reinforced by six pointed arches.

The inscription sets this han apart from the other two. The six-line text on the portal describes the building as a ribat and names İsmetü'd-Dünya ve'd-Din as its patron; the Culture Portal writes that she was the daughter of Mugiseddin Tuğrul Şah, son of Kılıçarslan II, and that her name also appears as patron on a building inscription dated 1232 in Uluborlu. The building was erected in the reign of Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev II, between 1237 and 1246; in the date line of the inscription only "thirteen" can be read. The text describes the sultan as the owner of the crown, the standard and the belt, insignia not seen among earlier Seljuk rulers, and states the function of the ribat as a place where those travelling from east to west would be hosted; the Portal considers this wording original and unique. In other words, one of Antalya's largest hans was built by a lady of the dynasty. The han has been used as a tourist facility since the restoration completed in 2009; during the repair the mouth of a cistern below ground level was uncovered in the middle of the courtyard and the remains of a ceramic kiln in the south-east corner. The District Governorship regards these finds as a sign that the han was not only a lodging but also a place of production and daily life. The Kırkgöz springs and the pool right next to the han complete the visit.

Alara Han, the sultan's han

The third han is on the other road, between Alanya and Konya. The TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam describes Alara Han as lying about eight kilometres inland from the Alanya-Antalya road, beside the Alara stream, as the first stage of the old Alanya-Konya caravan road; the article by Ayşıl Tükel published in Belleten in 1969 places the han on the left bank of the stream, about thirty kilometres from Alanya and ten kilometres inland from the coast. The Culture Portal gives the address as the Çakallar neighbourhood; Alara Castle is eight hundred metres away. The marble inscription above the portal names Alaeddin Keykubad as patron and gives the date 629, that is 1231-32; according to the Portal the inscription calls the sultan "master of the sultans of the Arabs and the Persians" and its upper part has been lost over time. The inscription is framed by stone consoles with lion heads.

Alara's plan differs from both other hans. Although the Encyclopaedia counts it among the sultan hans, it writes that it does not follow the scheme of open courtyard and closed section, and that its closed and open spaces are nested around a single centre within a rectangular plan; together with Afşin and Tercan it is the most important example of a small group. The entrance opens onto a small square courtyard; in the east wall of the courtyard is a fountain iwan with a shell-shaped niche, and Tükel describes this iwan's star vault and the staircase leading to the roof. Beyond the courtyard the central corridor reaches the guest rooms and iwans; two rows of vaulted spaces surround the corridor, the outer ones for stables and the inner ones for goods and servants. A room in the west wing is identified as the prayer room because it has the only mihrab niche in the building. The walls are mostly cut stone, the faces towards the slope rubble; on some stones mason's marks shared with the castle can be seen, and red zigzag patterns painted on the plaster. Lamp brackets with lion heads are rare in Seljuk architecture. The han was restored in recent years; the central corridor, once vaulted, is today covered by an iron frame and a polycarbonate roof.

Three plans, three patrons

Placed side by side, the three hans read like a textbook. Evdir, with its open courtyard of four iwans, is close to the tradition of Syria and the Jazira and a type almost unique in Anatolia. Kırkgöz, with its scheme of courtyard plus closed shelter, is the southern extension of the great sultan hans on the Konya-Aksaray road. Alara, with its nested central plan, is an experimental building and is suggested to have been designed for the lodging of the army. Their patrons are three separate stories too: Keykavus the sultan who retook the city, Keykubad the sultan who founded Alaiye, İsmetü'd-Dünya ve'd-Din a daughter of the dynasty. The inscriptions of all three are either lost or only partly legible; this is why the dates shift by a year or two between sources, and why we have not pretended to certainty.

How to get there today

Evdir and Kırkgöz require a car; both are reached by short turn-offs from the highway that leaves Antalya northward towards Burdur. The presentation of the Western Mediterranean Development Agency places Evdir 18 kilometres from the city centre, one kilometre east of today's Antalya-Korkuteli highway, and Kırkgöz 30 kilometres from Antalya at the Pınarbaşı locality; follow the signs for Yeşilbayır and Bıyıklı. You reach Evdir first; Kırkgöz is some twelve kilometres further on, and since the same road also gives the turn-offs for Termessos and Karain it is natural to add the hans to those trips. There is no ticket at Evdir; the building stands in open country, and the morning light shows the marble portal best. Since Kırkgöz is run as a facility you enter the courtyard and sit under the arcades; the rules of entry are asked at the facility. For Alara you take the turn-off near Okurcalar from the Antalya-Alanya highway and go inland along the stream; the han is on the flat of the valley and the castle on the rock above, and you can fit both into one afternoon. Because opening hours and entry conditions change, check the records on the Culture Portal and the pages of the Döşemealtı District Governorship before setting out. Whichever you choose, stop for a minute in front of the portal and look at the inscription; the single sentence that tells who invested in this road eight hundred years ago is there.

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