291
An Important Armenian Female Writer Prominent in
the Ottoman Period
Zabel Asadur, “Digin Dusap ir Srahin Mech.” (Mrs Dusap in her Salon)
Yerger (Complete
Works). Yerevan, Hayasdan Hradaragutyun, 1965.
Dussap,
Srpouhi
(1885).
Siranush,
Retrieved
from:
https://www.facebook.com/SrpouhiDussap/
A Circular Form Calligraphic Tile Panel from İstanbul Ayyub Sultan Tomb and
Comparison with Samples from the Period
Timur Bilir
1-Introduction
16
th
century, also called Asr- Saadat (Century of Prosperity) is the peak era of the
Ottomans in tile art as in every other field. No doubt the biggest contribution is of the greatest
artist of the era Architect Sinan. Great architect have used Iznik tiles of which the patterns are
drawn in palace workshops, for inner decorations of the many of the hundreds of the religious
and civil architecture works that he built. The patterns used on the tiles generally consists of
plant motives. These are separated into two groups among themselves as stylized (khetai-
pench style) and natural (Kara Mami style) flowers. Plant motives
are composed together with
rumi and stylized clouds. Besides, even it is not as often as in Seljuk dynasty era, geometrical
ornaments, crossovers called guilloche are also form the tile pattern repertoire. Within the
animal style patterns, more often seen in utility group tiles (dishware) also realistic and
legendary motives are seen. Calligraphy is also placed among the decorations of both the
utility group tiles and the architectural group tiles. The calligraphy which is used mainly
indoors on Ottoman religious buildings, have been used outdoors on some of the buildings.
Despite the building epitaphs are ornamented by engraving on marble, in the works of Sinan,
rarely samples of epitaphs written on tiles are seen (Hagia Sophia-Sultan Selim II Tomb’s
epitaph). In the wide tiled areas on the mihrab wall calligraphy is used moderately. These
writings generally performed on cobalt blue base with white. Like
in rare samples like Rustam
Pasha Mosque there are cobalt blue over white base calligraphic tiles are also seen.
Calligraphy over tiles is used also as pendentive in mosques and as tympanum and arc
writings in tombs. Also in narthexes of some important mosques there some examples of
calligraphy over tile on the tympanum. The "jali-thuluth compositions" (overlapping Arabic
calligraphy) that are understood to be the writing style the Master Sinan likes, appear as wall
stencils and written on tiles ( Derman,1988).
2. Circular Form (Mudavvar) Calligraphic Tile Panel in Istanbul Ayyub Sultan Tomb
Abu Ayyub al Ansari, with the actual name Khaled bin Zaid, was from Madina and among
the first Muslims. He had blood relation with Holy Mohammad through both his parents.
When Holy Mohammad have arrived to Madina he had stayed at his home until his own was
built. He had came to the conquest of Istanbul with Arab armies and died there
(Efendioğlu,2005). His tomb was built by Sultan Mahomed the Conqueror on the location
which was seen by his mentor Akshamsaddin in a dream on 1458. The tomb that was the first
structure to be built after conquest, had become the reason for an social complex composed of
mosque, madrasah, soup-kitchen and bath like functional structures to exists (Çantay,2000).
The body of the tomb had based on an eight cornered plan and the top is cover with a no
frame dome. There are two windows, one on top of another, on all the sides except the one
with the door. The lower windows are in rectangular shape and the smaller, upper windows
are with arcs. The small window of the mausoleum that looks to the mosque and indoors are
all covered with tiles. These tiles in the structure that has no tile ornamentation in first when it
was built, have been brought here from the palace storage and places that are damaged
through time in different periods and mounted here. The tiles of the tomb shows diversity
from 16
th
century up to 20
th
century. Among these, there are 16
th
century’s first half under
293
A Circular Form
Calligraphic Tile Panel
glazed technique tiles, second half of the same century underglazed technique high quality
Iznik tiles, Tekfur Palace production tiles and fake tile ceramics that can be dated to 20
th
century and many more types of samples. The actual tomb part that probably belongs to the
repairs have done by Ahmed I on 1607, 1612 and 1613, has the most regular tile program in
the structure (Orman,2002). In 1607-1608 a visitation section and a public fountain have been
added in front of the tomb entry that look towards the qibla. The first mosque that is built by
the Fatih (Conqueror) had collapsed except the minarets in the earthquake in May 1766 and in
the Selim III period the mosque has been rebuilt according to the old plan. Tomb whereas in
the period of Mahmud II has been restored and has given a baroque character (1819). The last
extensive repair on the structure was performed in years 1956-57 by General Directorate of
Foundations in supervision of Architect Vasfi Egeli (Altun& Demirsar Arl 2008).
Upon determination that there is a restoration needed on the mausoleum, in January 2011
works have begun. At first the location that was thought to be reopened after a six-seven
month surface work, was seen to be in need of an extensive restoration as the result of the
findings. It was seen that most of tiles on the tomb and in the visitation locale from different
eras are not placed on the wall but on the wooden “Baghdadi” plasterwork and the wooden
construction is almost completely broken down and the tiles are detached from the wooden
plasterwork in many places. Total of 7678 tiles in the mausoleum have been numbered one by
one and detached then conservation applied.
The circular form calligraphic tile panel subject to paper, have been detached during the
restoration that was completed in 2015, the missing parts are reproduced and have been made
complete (Fig.1).
Fig.1 Tile panel from Ayyub Sultan Tomb ( After restoration)