Top Covering Development of Konya Mosques in Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman Period

Abstract

Konya, which is located in Central Anatolia, is an important settlement area where the first architectural traces are found, many civilizations lived in this region, also had been the capital of the Anatolian Seljuk Empire. Konya mosques have been one of the pioneering and original examples of Seljuk and Ottoman mosque architecture. When the Konya mosques are examined with their architectural features and construction techniques, their develop- ment can be seen over the centuries. In particular, the covering system of mosques differs from the 12th century to the 19th century. The cover system that commonly applied in mosques was a dome structure and the bricklaying had been used in the dome and transition element construction in the mosque of Konya in all periods. With this feature, it has shaped the architecture after it. Within the scope of the study, the development of the covering systems of Konya Mosques built between the 12th and 19th centuries was examined and a typology was drawn. In the early periods of Anatolian Seljuks, there is a simple dome covering the square plan. In this period, the transition from the body walls to the dome was provided by the tromps. In the later periods, the transition to the dome was provided by a planar and prismatic triangle. At the end of the Anatolian Seljuk period, transition solutions from a rectangular plan to a dome are seen. Large mosques started to be built with the Ottoman period. With the increase in the diameter of the main dome, the transition to the dome turned into a pendentive, however during this period the arrangement of the dome tambour appeared on the facade. In the early Ottoman period, while the mosques with a single dome and a central plan were built as in the Seljuk period; mosques in complex form were built as time progressed, with each section covered with differently.