Sultan II. Bayezid Külliyesi Sağlık Müzesi

The Sultan Bayezid II Complex Health Museum is a museum run by Trakya University in the hospital and madrasa buildings of the Bayezid II Complex on the northern bank of the Tunca River in Edirne. The complex is a large group of buildings whose foundations were laid in the spring of 1484, while Bayezid II was staying in Edirne before setting out on his campaign to Kilia and Akkerman. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the mosque's inscription shows that the building was completed in 1487-1488. English Wikipedia gives Mimar Hayreddin as the architect of the complex. The complex consisted of the mosque, the guest houses on either side of it, a soup kitchen, a kitchen, a storehouse, a madrasa, a hospital and a bath. According to the endowment deeds, 147 people at various levels drew salaries in the complex. No trace of the bath survives today. The complex's position on the bank of the Tunca meant that river floods severely damaged the buildings in the 19th century; marks on the inner walls of the mosque show that the water rose to the height of a person. Thanks to an embankment built along the bank, these floods are now prevented. The darüşşifa, or hospital, served for about four hundred years, from 1488 until the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. According to Turkish Wikipedia it first cared for all kinds of patients and later only for patients with mental illness, and treatment was free of charge. Evliya Çelebi wrote that patients with mental illness were treated here with music and that musicians gave concerts to the patients three days a week. The museum's own website also lists the musical modes that Evliya Çelebi said were used in this treatment; neva, rast, dügah, segah and çargah are among them. The sound of water and pleasant scents are also said to have been used in treatment. The hospital has three sections. Outpatient rooms, a kitchen and service units line the first courtyard, and the rooms of the senior physicians are in the second courtyard. The most interesting section is the şifahane, where patients stayed. According to the TDV, it is laid out on a hexagonal plan, with six iwans opening onto a central hexagonal hall. The hall is covered by a large dome with a lantern and has a fountain with a jet in the middle. The museum's website explains that the dome spread sound evenly and that the sound of the fountain reached the patients' rooms. The TDV describes this building as a valuable work without parallel in Turkish hospital architecture. Work to turn the hospital into a museum began in 1993, and the museum opened to visitors on 23 April 1997. In 2000 the şifahane section was arranged as a section on the history of psychiatry. The madrasa beside the hospital joined the museum in 2008, and fifteenth-century medical education is recreated there with mannequins. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, however, states that the view that this madrasa was a medical school has no solid basis; it is worth knowing both views. The museum won the Council of Europe Museum Prize in 2004. According to English Wikipedia, the complex was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2016. Starting with the rooms of the first courtyard and passing through the second courtyard to the şifahane lets you see how the hospital worked, step by step. It is worth standing under the dome of the şifahane for a while and listening to how sound travels through the space. Afterwards you can look at the complex's large single-domed mosque from outside and at the two-coloured stone arches of its courtyard. The museum lies north of the city centre on the far bank of the Tunca; you can walk here from the centre or come by a short drive. Seen from the riverbank, the domes and minarets of the complex look especially beautiful at sunset. Check the opening hours and admission conditions on the museum's official website.