The Seljuk Han of Anatolia

Building materials

 

The architecture of the Seljuks of Anatolia was dependent on the local material and building techniques.  Turkey is a region blessed with immensely rich stone quarries of limestone and marble. 

 

Hans were built with ashlar masonry, using smooth, squared-off blocks of cut and dressed stone.  This technique permits very thin mortar joints.  In ashlar masonry, the smoothed square or rectangular stones (generally ashlar or limestone) are laid with rubble mortar in horizontal courses. In many cases, no mortar was used, so precisely cut were the stones. The stone was of varying quality, and sometimes aggregate stone was used. A better-quality stone was used in the covered sections than in the courtyards, in the portals than for the walls, and for the outer walls than for the inner ones.

 

The outer walls are solid, between 1-2 m thick, with an average of 1.25 m. 

 

Marble was used for the inscription plaques.
 

 

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