The Seljuq graveyard / Selcuk Mezarligi - Ahlat (Bitlis Province, Turkey)
N 38° 44.434 E 042° 27.527
38S E 279134 N 4291054
In a small town Ahlat, located at Western lakeshore of Lake Van in Eastern Turkey, you can find one of the most interesting, unique and historically valuable ancient graveyards worlwide...
Waymark Code: WMM37P
Location: Türkiye
Date Posted: 07/13/2014
Views: 1
In a small town Ahlat, located at Western lakeshore of Lake Van in Eastern Turkey, you can find one of the most interesting, unique and historically valuable ancient graveyards worlwide...
Though the history of the Ahlat dates back to 900 BC, its famous for her tombstones dating to 12th-15th centuries. It has an important place in the Islamic world in their variation within Anatolian tomb architecture in dimension and design. Tombstones in the vast Ahlat Seljuq graveyard are some of the most outstanding tombstones of the Seljuq (early Turkish) period in Anatolia. Tombstones, covered in lichen and leaning at drunken angles, many are 2 m tall, carved with elaborated designs showing Armenian influence (floral and geometric motiffs). The inscriptions (in Arabic and Persian) on the tombstones are generally in verse, extolling symbolic virtues.