Seljuk Caravanserais and the Gate of Pisidia in Döşemealtı

On the Burdur road running north out of Antalya, about 18 kilometres from the city centre and near Yeşilbayır, you arrive in front of Evdir Han. The building lies about 1 kilometre east of the Antalya-Korkuteli road; follow the sign and leave the car in the open ground facing the south facade. This is the oldest building on the route: its three-line marble inscription is no longer in place, but the TDV Encyclopaedia of Islam, relying on Riefstahl's reading of 1928, dates the building to the reign of İzzeddin Keykavus I, between 1211 and 1220. The Döşemealtı District Governorate names the same sultan and gives 1210 to 1219; both sources agree on the first quarter of the 13th century. Before approaching the entrance, walk once round the outside. The caravanserai is a regular rectangle of 54 by 67.6 metres on a north-south axis, and you can count fourteen corner buttresses around it: three each on the east and west facades, two on each of the other two. The walls are a rubble core faced with well-cut stone; the faces of the stones carry many masons' marks, and looking closely you will see the same mark repeated on several stones. Then come to the portal in the middle of the south facade. The portal projects from the body of the wall; although its upper part has partly collapsed, what remains is the most ornate face of the building. The hood of the niche has seven rows of muqarnas; there are cylindrical corner colonnettes on either side and, above, a pointed arch resting on muqarnas consoles. The decoration is in marble and entirely geometric: look for ten-pointed star interlaces in the wide band framing the niche, circles and lozenges joined by knot motifs on the arch, and fan and shell motifs in the muqarnas cells. The hoods of the two small niches facing each other inside the entrance have three rows of muqarnas. The south facade takes direct light towards noon; the shadows of the carving read best in the morning, when the light falls from the side. Inside, an open courtyard of 34.5 by 45.1 metres receives you, surrounded on four sides by vaulted iwans. This plan, the open-courtyard type with four main iwans, is an arrangement with only two known examples in Anatolia; the other is Han el-Ba'rur of 1215, southeast of Harran. Standing in the middle of the courtyard you can make out that the iwans on the axes are higher and wider than the others, and that the vaults rest on double rows of stone piers. Small doors in the east and south walls lead into narrow rectangular rooms that show on the outside as buttresses; the encyclopaedia writes that these may have served as lookouts. The building is neglected and disused; do not climb onto the wall tops, do not lean on loose stones, and do not let children run free inside the iwans. According to the Governorate's page, Döşemealtı Municipality and the Faculty of Fine Arts of Akdeniz University are carrying out a joint study to bring the caravanserai back to life; once the restoration is complete, cultural events and a museum are planned here. So the state you see may be temporary; take your photographs for that reason too. The same page describes the caravanserai as the last lodging on the caravan road before reaching Termessos; you will remember that at Ariassos at the end of the day. Forty-five minutes is enough for the walk round the outside, the portal and the courtyard. Return to the car and continue towards Burdur; the next stop takes you off the main road to the foot of Katran Dağı.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Evdir Hanı; Döşemealtı Kaymakamlığı.

As you continue from Evdir Han towards Burdur, the mass of Katran Dağı grows to the west; Karain lies on the eastern slope of this mountain, within the bounds of Yağca, 27-30 kilometres from the city centre. The sources give the distance differently: the Culture Portal says 30 kilometres and Wikipedia 27; what matters is that you must turn 5-6 kilometres inland from the main road, so follow the Karain sign. At this stop we will not describe the cave itself at length; Radar's route from Termessos to Karain and the place page cover it in detail. Here Karain is a pause and a viewpoint between two Seljuk caravanserais. Leave the car at the visitor reception point; remember that admission is charged and that hours, fees and the closing day can change, so check the current details on the official website. According to the Culture Portal, the cave mouth is reached from the reception point by a stairway of 470 steps and stands about 150 metres above the travertine plain in front of it, at 430-450 metres above sea level. Climb the steps without hurrying; bring water and choose the morning hours in summer. Stop now and then on the way up and look back: the plain spreading below opens towards the Antalya side where you saw Evdir Han in the morning, and from here the line of the caravan road can be grasped at a glance. The caravanserais are strung northwards along the edge of this very plain, following the foot of the mountain. Up above, on the outer walls of the cave, there are a Greek inscription and niches; the Culture Portal writes that the cave was used as a place of offerings. So this rock shelter was already a stopping place on the road more than a thousand years before the caravanserais. Inside, three main chambers are linked by corridors and narrow passages; walk the marked path without touching the calcite walls and the stalactites. For this short visit it is enough to know that the excavations began in 1946 with İsmail Kılıç Kökten, continued with breaks until 2008, and found a cultural deposit about 11 metres thick. The cave was inhabited without a break from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Classical age; the longest and most important layer of settlement belongs to the Palaeolithic. Some of the finds are in the Karain Museum near the cave and some in the Antalya Museum; after coming down from the cave, give the small museum half an hour. Thinking of the stone tools and bone finds side by side with the cut-stone masonry you see at the caravanserais gives you the scale of the time that has passed in this one valley. According to Wikipedia the cave formed by karstic processes in Cretaceous limestone on Çadır Tepesi, on the slope of Katran Dağı, and it was declared a first-degree archaeological and natural site in 1997. Karain has been on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List since 1994. An hour at this stop is tight but enough for the stairs, the cave and the museum; anyone who wants to explore the cave thoroughly should choose the other route. Take a short break around the museum and catch your breath before moving on to Kırkgöz. On the way back, return by the same road to the Antalya-Burdur road and continue north towards Burdur. The road soon reaches Kırkgöz, at Pınarbaşı, and the second caravanserai appears by the roadside.

Source: Kültür Portalı, Karain Mağarası; Wikipedia.

Kırkgöz Han stands at Kırkgöz on the Antalya-Burdur route, in the Bıyıklı neighbourhood, 30 kilometres from the city centre; BAKA describes it as the second halt on the old Antalya-Afyon road. In other words, this was the next lodging for a caravan that had spent the night at Evdir; you have measured the distance between the two caravanserais yourself since the morning. Right beside the caravanserai are the Kırkgöz springs at Pınarbaşı; after leaving the car, walk first towards where the water rises, and why the caravanserai was built exactly here becomes clear at a glance. Then turn to the south facade and the portal. The portal projects from the facade and is monumental; in place of Evdir's marble star interlaces you see plain borders and a pointed-arched iwan here. The six-line inscription on the portal names the building a ribat; its founder is İsmetü'd-Dünya ve'd-Din Hatun, whom the Culture Portal introduces as the daughter of Mugiseddin Tuğrul Şah and granddaughter of Kılıçarslan II. The building was erected in the reign of Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev II, between 1237 and 1246; of the date, only the words "thirteen" could be read in the last line of the inscription. The Culture Portal writes that the same founder's name also appears in a building inscription of 1232 from Uluborlu. Roughly a generation separates the two caravanserais on the route; at Evdir the founder was the sultan himself, at Kırkgöz a woman of the dynasty. Walk once round the outside counting the square-section buttresses and corner towers; the walls stand far more solidly than those of Evdir, and BAKA describes the building as "in a very sound condition". Since the restoration completed in 2009 the caravanserai has been used as a tourist facility; tell the staff inside before entering the courtyard and respect the areas in use. The courtyard occupies the southern half of the rectangular plan that runs north-south; there are double-row arcades on its east and west sides, rooms at the northwest and northeast corners, and two rooms adjoining the portal on the south. Stand in the vaulted shade of the arcades and look across the courtyard; you will understand how the iwan arrangement you saw in ruins at Evdir stands here with its roof. During the restoration a cistern was uncovered in the courtyard floor, and remains of a ceramic kiln were found in the southeast corner; the Governorate takes these as proof that the caravanserai was not only a lodging but also a place of production and daily life. Ask the staff where the cistern is; most visitors pass it without noticing. North of the courtyard is the closed shelter section; this wide space running east-west is covered by a pointed barrel vault and strengthened with arches. Stand inside the closed section and recall the plan you saw at Evdir in the morning: here a closed shelter and an open courtyard stand side by side, there it was only an open courtyard with four iwans. According to the Governorate, the wording of the inscription shows that the caravanserai was designed as a lodging centre for travellers journeying from east to west. The same page describes the caravanserai as one of the important halts on the historic Silk Road. The south facade takes direct light in the middle of the day; photograph the portal at that hour, and the arcades with the shadows of their vaults. Its use as a facility may change the visiting arrangements; find out whether it is open before you set out. An hour is enough for the caravanserai, the springs and a short break. From here the road to Ariassos begins to climb into the Taurus; check your water and fuel here, because the last stop is an archaeological site beside a mountain pass.

Source: Döşemealtı Kaymakamlığı; Kültür Portalı, Kırkgöz Han; BAKA.

After Kırkgöz the Burdur road climbs into the Taurus and reaches Çubukbeli, the pass that links the Antalya coast to the Anatolian plateau. Ariassos lies west of the pass, about 50 kilometres from Antalya, about 1 kilometre beyond the village of Akkoç, on a steep slope above 900 metres. According to the Culture Portal, the town is reached by turning off at the junction on the Antalya-Bucak road; slow down so as not to miss the sign. Leave the car at the foot of the slope and walk; the site belongs to the Antalya Museum and the entry arrangements may change, so look at the official website before you set out. The first thing you see will be the monumental three-arched city gate. The gate is Roman; the Culture Portal dates it to the reign of Severus Alexander, Wikipedia says the 3rd century and adds that four statues once stood on it. The gate stands almost complete; pass under the arches, then turn and look back over the valley, for this is exactly the threshold where the caravan road entered Pisidia. The town was founded in the Hellenistic period, in the 3rd century BC, and lived on in the Byzantine period until the 7th century AD; the Culture Portal ties the foundation more precisely to 189-188 BC, to the campaign of Manlius Vulso and the Peace of Apameia. The name "Aarassos", which Strabo passed on from Artemidoros, is the name of this town. Coins were struck from the 1st century BC to the reign of Gallienus, 253-267. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism defines the town as a strategic point near the roads linking mountainous Pisidia to lowland Pamphylia. After the gate, follow the main street; the same directorate, relying on recent research, writes that this street joined the Roman-period road leading to Termessos. So the link you learned of in the morning at Evdir, the last caravanserai before reaching Termessos, is closed here in stone. The remains of a basilica, a bouleuterion, a stoa, a nymphaeum, a gymnasium and baths lie scattered over the slope; the theatre is completely ruined, so do not spend time looking for it. There are also the remains of three small churches from the Byzantine period; note them as the historic buildings of the town's last centuries. Give your real time to the necropoleis: there are two burial grounds, east and west of the town, and the monumental tombs of heroon type are the best-preserved remains of Ariassos. In the northern part of the western necropolis nine mausoleum-type tombs and about forty simple tomb buildings are counted, and nine tomb structures in the eastern necropolis. Look closely at the mausoleums: a podium with orthostats on a two-stepped krepis, a double vault above, and six steps between the antae leading up to the sarcophagus chamber. Pisidian-type sarcophagi with shields and simple rock-cut graves are seen in the same area. Do not go inside the tomb monuments; the stones of the vaults may have shifted. For photographs, the slanting light of the afternoon gives depth to the arches of the gate and the fronts of the tombs. The slope is steep and the paths are indistinct; you need sturdy shoes, water and enough daylight for the way back, and at the pass the air is noticeably cooler than in Antalya. Ninety minutes is enough for the gate, the street and the two necropoleis. The return by the same road to Antalya takes about an hour; on the way you can stop a second time at Kırkgöz and rest by the springs in the evening light.

Source: Kültür Portalı, Ariassos; Antalya İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü.