Isparta Atabey Ertokuş Medresesi ve Türbesi: Taşçı İşaretleri Işığında Yeni Bir Bakış
İlk çağdan itibaren taş kullanılarak inşa edilmiş mimari eserlerde, taşların üzerine kazınan işaretler genel bir tanımlamaya tabi olup alan yazında taşçı işaretleri başlığı altında değerlendirilmiştir. Bu işaretlerin safi kazıma yoluyla değil, aynı zamanda boyanarak işlendiği de bilinmektedir. Taşçı işaretlerinin mahiyetine ilişkin türlü açıkla9 malar mevcutsa da bunların en kabul görenleri, taşı işleyen ustanın imzası, ürün başına ücret alan çalışanların işlediği taşları etiketleme aracı ve taşın duvar örgüsünde yerleşeceği konumu gösteren yönlendirici işaretler olduğu yönündedir. Taşçı işaretlerinin bir yapının inşa sürecine ilişkin sunacağı verilerin önemli bilgiler içerdiği aşikârdır. Isparta Atabey Ertokuş Medresesi ve Türbesi yapısal ve plan özellikleri bakımından sanat tarihi çerçevesinde problemli olarak kabul edilen bir yapıdır. Bu çalışmada, yapıyla ilgili problemler tanımlanarak, diğer araştırmacı9 ların bu konudaki yaklaşımlarına ve çözüm önerilerine yer verilmiştir. Ancak yapıdaki taşçı işaretleri daha önceki çalışmalarda değerlendirilmediği için, bu konunun irdelenmesi gerekliliği doğmuştur. Bu çalışma kapsamında her iki yapı, detaylı bir şekilde incelenmiş ve her iki yapıda da tüm kazımalar/işaretler saptanmıştır. Elde edilen veriler ayrıştırılarak saptanan taşçı işaretleri sınıflandırılmış ve çeşitli açılardan değerlendirilerek çözümlenmiştir. Bu bağlamda incelenen her iki yapının mimari özellikleri de değerlendirmeye dâhil edilerek bahsi geçen sorunlara çözüm önerileri sunulmuştur.
Isparta Atabey Ertokuş Madrasah and Mausoleum: A New Perspective in the Light of Stonemasons’ Marks
Since ancient times, marks carved onto the stones of architectural works have been broadly defined and classified in literature as stonemasons' marks. While their precise purpose remains debated, these marks are believed to have served various functions, including identifying the stonemason responsible for a particular stone, labeling stones for piecework wages or indicating a stone's placement within the structure. Consequently, stonemasons’ marks offer valuable insights into historical construction practices. The Atabey Ertokuş Madrasah and Mausoleum in Isparta presents a unique case study for art historians due to its unresolved structural and stylistic features. Existing scholarship has broadly outlined these issues and proposed solutions. However, this study recognizes a gap in the current understanding: the potential role of stonemasons' marks in elucidating the building's construction history. To address this lacuna, a comprehensive examination of both structures was undertaken, meticulously recording all carved markings. The collected data was then systema9 tically categorized and analyzed in relation to the stonemasons' marks themselves, as well as the architectural characteristics of the buildings. Through this rigorous approach, the study sheds light on the unresolved aspects of the Atabey Ertokuş Madrasah and Mausoleum, proposing novel interpretations based on the stonemasons' mark evidence.
During the Middle Ages, Anatolia witnessed radical changes with the arrival of the Turks. The architectural changes, one of the leading elements of this transformation, were not one9sided; while the people of Anatolia met new building types, the Turks formed the original Turkish Architecture of Anatolia by combining the architectural knowledge they carried from the east to the west with new building materials and different plan schemes. One of the most important phases of this development process occurred during the Anatolian Seljuk period. The architecture of the Anatolian Seljuk period, which has been the subject of scholarly research since the beginning of the 20th century, has been an important indicator for understanding the social structure, artistic sense, and social dynamics of the period. Although the surviving structures built during the period in question have been studied and assessed by scholars in terms of various aspects, there are still topics and questions that need to be addressed regarding the architecture of the period. One of these topics is the stonemasons’ marks observed on the structures built during the relevant time period. Stonemasons’ marks, which have been found on buildings constructed with stone throughout ancient periods and are known to be present on architectural works in a wide geographical area spanning from Iran and Mesopotamia to North Africa and Europe, are also observed on Anatolian Turkish architectural structures. Stonemasons’ marks, bearing the potential to provide valuable insights into the construction processes of the monuments, their relevance to one another, as well as the cultural structure of the society, are worthy of in9depth research.
Atabey Ertokuş Madrasah and Mausoleum is located in the Atabey district of Isparta province today and consists of a madrasah, a mausoleum and a mosque, which was built in the late Ottoman period. The building complex is thought to have originally constituted a comprehensive social complex scheme (külliye), including a bathhouse and a fountain. On the building’s inscription located just above the low9arched entrance of madrasah, it is written that the building was built by Abdullah’s son Ertokuş in 1224. Its construction material consists of cut stone, brick and rubble stone as well as spolia. Cut stone types differ between the madrasah and the mausoleum. These buildings are one of the few examples of directly connected mausoleum and madrasah buildings of early Anatolian Seljuk architecture. In addition, the fact that the arches of the madrasah were built alternately of brick and cut stone makes this building one of the few examples of Anatolian Seljuk architecture in another way. This madrasah and mausoleum complex is problematic both in terms of its plan features and the variety of materials used and the way they are used. These problems can be explained as; the plan of the madrasah resembles the Greek cross plan type, which was applied in Byzantine churches, the arrangement of the spolia used in the main iwan is reminiscent of the iconastasis section of churches, the disproportion of the opening reserved for the cover of the central courtyard, and the asymmetrical order seen in the connection between the tomb and the madrasah. As mentioned above, the stonemasons’ marks which are expected to provide important insight on the construction process, may contain the answers to these problems. In this context, the stonemasons’ marks found on both buildings and the signs thought to be of this nature, as well as various engraved symbols and inscriptions noticed during the documentation, were recorded. All signs with the potential of stonemasons’ marks were analyzed and those that are believed to be of this nature were categorized. The same marks that recurring in different locations of the buildings have been considered as a type and categorized as such. This resulted in 20 different types of marks and in total 57 marks, of which 31 of them were on the madrasah and 26 of them were on the mausoleum. Among these types of marks, six of them are thought to be not stonemasons’ marks but in fact were probably carved by the visitors or the students that educated at the madrasah, due to their graphic styles and the stones that they were engraved was not dressed. In addition, some of these marks’ resemblance to the damga, which is a symbol for different Turkic tribes, led to this conclusion. The types of stonemasons’ marks found on these structures are also seen on other Anatolian Seljuk buildings. This is a long list, but if we limit them to buildings with more than 5 common stonemasons’ mark types, we have the following buildings: Kargı Inn (13th Century) 5 types; Tercan Mama Hatun Caravanserai (120091210) 9 types; Evdir Inn (121191220) 5 types; Aksaray Sultan Inn (1229) 6 types; Avanos Sarı Inn (122591250) 7 types; Ağzıkara Inn (123191240) 6 types; Alara Inn (123191232) 5 types; Karatay Inn (1240) 5 types; Zazadin Inn (123691237) 6 types; Horozlu Inn (124691249) 7 types. 9 out of 10 of these buildings were built in the first half of the 13th century, in the same period as the Ertokuş Madrasah. This suggests that stonemasons’ marks may be a criterion for dating. The common stonemasons’ mark types between the above9mentioned buildings and the Atabey Ertokuş Madrasah and Mausoleum are those with the catalogue numbers 1, 1a, 5a, 5b, 5c, 7, 8 and 8a. Among these 1, 1a, 7, 8 and 8a are common throughout Anatolia and a wide timeline. On the other hand, signs with catalogue numbers 5a, 5b and 5c appear in a narrow group of structures. These signs were found 95 times at Tercan Mama Hatun Caravanserai, 26 times at Horozlu Inn, 11 times at Zazadin Inn, and once each at Ağzıkara and Avanos Sarı Inn. This is merely a suggestion, but it can be argued that the stonemasons who used these marks worked in Tercan in the early 1200s, then came to Atabey and were involved in the construction of the madrasa and mausoleum in the early 1220s, then they were employed on the construction site of the Sultan Inn in Aksaray in the late 1220s, in Zazadin in the 1230s and the Horozlu Inn in the 1240s, and then in the construction of the Sarı Inn in Avanos. If we turn to the results about the madrasah and mausoleum’s structural connectivity which given by the stonemasons’ marks and detailed structural analysis, the most interesting one is about the connection wall between the madrasah and the tomb. This asymmetrical link between these two buildings led to assume that these buildings were built at different times. This situation can be explained as two of the three entrances opened into the main iwan of the madrasa sit perpendicularly on the eastern façade of the mausoleum, while the other one is connected to the southeastern façade of the mausoleum at a narrower angle. When the connecting walls between the two structures are carefully examined, it is seen that the northern one (placed at right angles to the eastern façade of the mausoleum) is aligned with the masonry on the northeastern façade of the mausoleum and has a similar double9colored stonework. In addition, the stonemason’s mark with the catalogue number “5c”, which was found in both buildings, was also found here. The wall on the south side connecting the two buildings (which is attached to the southeast façade of the mausoleum) has the same characteristics as the madrasah wall it connects with, both in terms of the use of rough masonry stone and the way it is built. Based on this data, it can be argued that the northern wall was built first when the two structures were connected, but in the following process, when it was understood that the existing opening was too narrow to allow the desired triple entrance view in the madrasah, some arrangements were made on the madrasah wall and the wall on the southeast façade of the mausoleum was built. The discovery of a stonemason’s mark on this wall and careful structural analysis proved that this connection between the two structures was original and that they were built in a narrow timeline one after the other.
The evaluation of the conclusions reached in the light of concrete evidence was not limited to the scale of the building, but hypotheses were also presented regarding the use of stonemason's marks in general. The marks that have been recorded here have been compared to the other buildings that were built during the Anatolian Seljuk, Beyliks and Ottoman Eras. Some striking findings suggested that several of the marks used longer periods than expected, from the early 11th century to the 18th century. This result is indeed intriguing and led us to think that such marks were either for the placement of the stones or an insignia of an organization. Other than that, these marks in question have the possibility that are a common script that establish for the payment of the journeyman who earn his wages per piece, throughout Anatolia and pass down for generations. Besides stonemasons’ marks, other engravings, which are considered as graffiti, was not analyzed in depth. Among these graffiti, the word tawhid was written six times on the walls of the mausoleum, and the names of Allah and Ali in Arabic script were engraved on the columns carrying the dome in the madrasa. In addition, there are drawings referring to the pagan Turkic culture. Since they are outside the scope of this article, they were only documented and were not deeply analyzed.
