Zeynel Bey Tomb: An Aq Qoyunlu Dynastic Monument in Hasankeyf
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Turkey
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Aq Qoyunlu
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Tomb
On this page7 sections
History
Zeynel Bey Tomb is a 15th-century monument in Hasankeyf, Türkiye, built for the Aq Qoyunlu dynasty in 1473 and associated with the Nakhchivan–Maragha architectural tradition. The Aq Qoyunlu, also known as the White Sheep Turkmen, were a Turkmen ruling dynasty that controlled eastern Anatolia, northern Mesopotamia, western Iran, and nearby regions during the fifteenth century. The tomb commemorates Zeynel Bey, the son of the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan, and reflects the dynasty’s religious and commemorative architecture.
Foundation under the Aq Qoyunlu
Zeynel Bey was fatally wounded during the Battle of Otlukbeli in 1473, a major conflict between Uzun Hasan’s Aq Qoyunlu forces and the Ottoman army, and died after the battle. Uzun Hasan commissioned the tomb for his son. Its inscription identifies Zeynel Bey as Uzun Hasan’s son, while the monument’s date is associated with the events of 1473 rather than with a construction date stated in the inscription. The architect, Abdurrahmanoğlu Pir Hüseyin, is identified as being of Iranian origin and is named in the inscription as the master builder.
The tomb formed part of a külliye, an Islamic religious and charitable complex organized around a principal religious building and its supporting structures. The other buildings associated with this complex were later destroyed, while the tomb retained its principal architectural features despite the loss of parts of its structure and decoration.
Relocation to the New Cultural Park
The completion of the Ilisu Dam, a hydroelectric project on the Tigris River, threatened to submerge the tomb’s original location. On 12 May 2017, a specially developed system moved the monument to the Hasankeyf New Cultural Park, approximately 2 kilometers away. The relocation preserved the tomb as a surviving Aq Qoyunlu monument while changing its physical setting.
Remains
The tomb now stands in the Hasankeyf New Cultural Park. At its original location, it stood north of the Tigris River and west of the Hasankeyf Bridge. Its structure combines a cylindrical exterior with an octagonal interior, a stone lower section, a brick upper section, and a double-shell dome. The burial chamber lies beneath the main body, while the surviving exterior preserves evidence of an elaborate glazed-brick and mosaic-tile scheme.
Structure and burial chamber
The monument rises from a cylindrical base, with stone construction extending to approximately 4.5 meters and brickwork above it. The lower stone surface was comparatively plain, while the horizontal and vertical arrangement of the upper bricks contributed to the exterior design. A small doorway on the eastern side of the base leads to the burial chamber. Evidence from surviving fabric and beam sockets indicates that this chamber was covered by a shallow vault supported by wooden beams, with numerous pots and jugs incorporated into the upper roofing or covering system. The stairs to the main body, parts of the burial-chamber covering, and facing stones in the lower sections have fallen away or become detached.
Interior spaces and dome
The main body is entered from the north through a doorway, with a window opening of the same size opposite it. Each side of the octagonal interior contains a pointed-arched niche that rises toward the dome’s transition zone. Between the rectangular niches, muqarnas, stepped cellular forms used to connect walls and domes while providing geometric ornament, fill the corners at arch level. Above this zone is a dome drum decorated with pendant diamond-shaped motifs. The dome is narrower than the main body, hemispherical on the inside and helmet-shaped on the outside. Its inner shell has four windows, while the outer shell has three.
The inner octagonal walls retain green glazed hexagonal tiles to a height of approximately 1.5 meters. These tiles were made using a burnishing technique. Traces indicate that five- and six-pointed stars once covered the entire inner dome, while other parts of the body were coated with mortar. The surviving dome ornament consists mainly of zigzag motifs on the drum, whose corners end in rows of diamonds.
Glazed exterior and inscriptions
The cylindrical exterior was faced with glazed brick. Door and window openings have plain lintels and are framed by tall pointed arches, giving them the appearance of recessed portal forms. A thick rectangular frame with interlocking hexagonal motifs surrounds the niches and joins below to encircle the body. Turquoise, purple, brown, black, and white mosaic tiles were combined with glazed bricks in the decoration. Geometric tile patterns appear in the borders and portal areas.
Kufic inscriptions, an angular monumental script, were placed on the lintel stones with interwoven floral forms. The door arch carries a craftsman’s inscription dispersed among star forms. The principal inscription appears in two colors in the upper field above the entrance, using intricate Thuluth script, a cursive monumental script with elongated and interwoven letterforms. Triangular spaces around it contain vegetal ornament formed from curving branches, rumi leaf patterns, and palmettes. Repeated inscriptions among the southern window decorations have deteriorated, while the upper and lower portions of a four-row checkerboard Kufic design have fallen away. Turquoise glazed bricks arranged in zigzag patterns framed this decoration, which repeated the names Allah, Muhammad, Ahmad, and Ali from top to bottom.
Substantial deterioration has affected the stone facing, brick decoration, inscriptions, dome ornament, stairs, and lower coverings. Even with these losses, the cylindrical form, octagonal interior, dome arrangement, and principal architectural characteristics of the monument survive.
