A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire / Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology (PDF)

9 Transformations, Readings, and Visions of the Ottoman Mosque (p. 119-120)
Alison B. Snyder

INTRODUCTION

Buildings can express and capture the essence of an epoch. Cultures display their social, political, religious and artistic foundations through their built structures. Power and strength may be codified and packaged for regional consumption and in this way the religious building is imbued with layered meanings. During the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman mosque underwent substantial design transformations. To investigate these, I am interested in connecting an historical and theoretical architectural perspective with archaeology. Though this study is primarily concerned with the religious building typologies developed during Ottoman times, these structures remain in the extant landscape.

The allure and mystery behind the persistent contradictions and social conflicts inherent in today’s Turkey with its enduring ancient traditions can be viewed through the ubiquitous mosque (cami). When studying some of the existing literature on Ottoman architecture, there are several who have written on specific buildings, their elements and the societal factors surrounding them. Yet, there are three to whom I will first call attention to, as they have written copiously on this broad subject as well as on the specifics.

It appears that most scholarly work dealing with the Ottoman mosque is primarily concerned with experimentation in structural technology (and then current capabilities) as the major catalyst for producing new design configurations, mentioning light and lighting as a byproduct (for example, Godfrey Goodwin’s 1971 A History of Ottoman Architecture, Dogan Kuban’s 1985 Muslim Religious Architecture: Development of Religious Architecture in Later Periods and a 1997 paper in Muqarnas, and Aptullah Kuran’s 1986 Sinan: The Grand Old Master of Ottoman Architecture ).

To date, there