Oleksa Haiworonski

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE SETTLEMENT OF ESKİ YURT (BAĞÇASARAY, CRIMEA)

International Symposium "Crimea, Caucasus and the Volga-Ural Region - Islamic Art and Architecture in the European Periphery" (Berlin, 2004)

The purpose of this article lays in providing foreign researchers with a general over-view of a little-known and insufficiently explored monument of Crimean Tatar history and culture of the 14th-16th centuries: the settlement of Eski Yurt with its two cemeteries Aziz and Qırq Azizler.


1. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Eski Yurt is the name for a settlement located formerly in the western part of what is now the town of Bağçasaray in Southwest Crimea (Ukraine). Presently the historical area of Eski Yurt is overlaid with modern housing and industrial building, and partly with suburban wastelands.

Eski Yurt consisted of the main part and a smaller remote settlement called Aziz of the Aziz of Melek Aşter.
The exact period when Eski Yurt was established has not been clarified yet. The most ancient gravestone from its cemetery dates 1316 (5, p. 26). However, several narrative sources mentioned presence of Christian temples on the site in the past (3, p.344; 11, p.691), which seems to be corroborated with the fact of secondary using of marble blocks with Christian symbolic for producing a Muslim gravestone (1, p. 307). This may suggest taking into account the possibility of establishing the settlement in the period preceding the epoch of the Golden Horde (13th-15th centuries).
Eski Yurt was located at an old trade way, which connected seaports of Southwest Crimea with the plains of the peninsula. Apparently Eski Yurt was the local center of trade and urbanization in the early period of its history. The historical topography of the settlement shows certain analogies with that of another important urban center of the same period – the town of Qırım (also known as Solqat and Eski Qırım, presently Staryj Krym) in the eastern part of the Crimean peninsula, which was the administrative and cultural center of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde Empire.
After the establishing of the independent Crimean Khanate (the middle of the 15th century) Eski Yurt lost its significance and gradually became almost depopulated because of outflow of citizens to a new Crimean capital Bağçasaray founded in 1532. Up to the middle of the 20th century Eski Yurt was a separate settlement and was often re-ferred as a suburb of Bağçasaray. This status was changed in the Soviet period after the 2WW, when the settlement was renamed to “Podgorodnieje” and then incorporated into the municipal area of Bağçasaray.

The name “Eski Yurt” (”old settlement” from Crimean Tatar) has apparently a secondary character. The sources known do not provide any information about the initial name of the site.
Hüseyin Bodaninski (a Crimean Tatar historian, the first director of the Museum of the Bağçasaray Palace) considered Eski Yurt as an integral part of the agglomeration of settlements in the valley of the Çürüq Suv river. Another key point of this agglomeration was the fortress of Qırq Yer (known presently as Çufut Qale) on a mountain cape in the upper part of the Çürüq Suv valley. Following the working hypothesis by H. Bodaninski the mountain fortress played the role of the remote strengthened citadel of Eski Yurt, which was located on a lowland at the mouth of the valley (2, p. 181).
Bodaninski assumed, that during that period the settlement was called Qırq. The word Qırq was interpreted by Bodaninski as a Turkic patronym (2, 1929, p. 181).
From our point of view here we have the most appropriate interpretation of the toponym of Qırq which is abundantly represented among the toponyms of the vicinities of Bağçasaray (f.ex. Qırq Azizler cemetery, Qırq Yer fortress). All other (either previous or further) attempts to explain this toponymic component were quite artificial and inconvincible. The interpretation by Bodaninski gives clear semantic of the mentioned toponyms: Qırq Azizler as “the sanctuaries of the Qırqs” and Qırq Yer as “the place of the Qırqs” etc.

There existed several Muslim cemeteries dispersed around Eski Yurt. Two of them, located by the opposite sides of the settlement, were the best known.
The first one was called Qırq Aziziler. It occupied a wide area to the Northwest from Eski Yurt. Muslim gravestones represented on it were marked with their old age and diversity.
The second cemetery located in Aziz was not as large as Qırq Azizler though possessed more spiritual significance as a nation-wide religious center. It included a memorial sanctuary of Melik Aşter (619-658, a military leader in the army of khalif Ali) placed in a mosque which was also used as a tekiye (a house for assemblies of sufis – members of Muslim mystical societies); cemetery and four dürbes (mausoleums). One of these mausoleums was a family tomb of several members of the Crimean ruling dynasty.


2. HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ESKI YURT

It is necessary to note, that the sum of historical data about Eski Yurt and Aziz is rather scarce because of lack of both narrative and archaeological sources. The known sources are currently limited to some descriptions of the site (3, p.344; 11, p.691; 8, 1999, p.34; 14, p.109; 7, p.91), a publication of the results of the only archaeological research in Eski Yurt of 1924-1925 (1), 24 monuments moved from the cemeteries of Eski Yurt to the Khan Palace in Bağçasaray, and finally to 4 mausoleums and 1 minber which still remain in Aziz. The problem of exploring Eski Yurt becomes than more complicated that a significant part of the site is unavailable for any archaeological excavations being overlaid with a dense housing area.
The most of narrative sources from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th centuries are short travelers’ notes providing very little historical information. The visitors of the region usually left Eski Yurt aside of their sight, mentioning it (if mentioning at all) just as a prelude to the description of Bağçasaray. The only known exception is the description by Evliya Çelebi of 1666, which provides an extensive though not much informative depiction of Eski Yurt cemetery (4, pp. 59-68). There are also two documents of the 19th century which are preparatory papers for registering and repairing the mausoleums of Aziz (10, pp. 393-394; 12, pp.51-52). 

Generally, Eski Yurt has not been an object of systematic scientific research yet. In 1924-1925 H. Bodaninski and A. Baszkirow with the participance of I. Borozdin carried out archaeological works on the site. The resulting publication was mainly focused on the typological analysis of monuments from the Qırq Azizler cemetery (1). Hüseyin Bodaninski outlined the plan for further work, which foresaw to reveal the true role of Eski Yurt in the forming of the statehood and urban system of the Crimean Tatar state. However this work was not completed as the corresponding scientific programs of the Museum of the Bağçasaray Palace were stopped by the communistic authorities while Bodaninski himself was murdered by the regime in 1938.
Another attempt to classify the scientific information on Eski Yurt was undertaken in 1941 by archaeologist N. Riepnikow who had previously worked with Bodaninski – but his work was also neither accomplished nor published (9, pp.1-6).
There are also several sketches on the architecture of the mausoleums of Aziz (13, pp.116-120; 6, pp. 21-26). The epigraphic monuments of Qırq Azizler were subjects of studies by H. Bodaninski and O. Aqçoqraqlı in the 1920s and then by a modern expert in 1989 (5, pp. 24-31).


3. MONUMENTS OF ESKI YURT

The remaining monuments of material culture from Eski Yurt are the next:
- 4 dürbes or tombs in Aziz (15th or earlier -16th centuries);
- 1 minber or a miniature stone tower, a cathedra for mullah in Aziz (presumable of the 16th century);
- 24 marble and limestone gravestones moved by the expedition of 1924 from the Qırq Azizler cemetery to the Bağçasaray Khan Palace (14th-the beginning of the 15th centuries).

a. Tomb of Bey Yude Sultan
The tomb bears an Arabic monumental inscription above the entrance, which informs that the mausoleum was built by Muhammed Şah Bey for his mother Bey Yude Sultan, a daughter of Acağan Bey. The inscription does not provide any date, no gravestones remained inside the mausoleum. Use of a characteristic Selcuq portal at the entrance makes the 15th century the most probable period when the building was erected. 

b. “Tomb of Ahmed Bey”
The dürbe has no monumental inscriptions or burial stones inside. Because a fragment of the gravestone of Ahmed Bey was found in the ground close to the walls of the dürbe in 1921, the tomb got a conventional name “the dürbe of Ahmed Bey”. Following the same principle the building was conventionally dated 1557 (the date marked on the gravestone). However, the peculiarities of architectural style of the dürbe seem to point at its more ancient age. The cubic domed construction finds its closest analogies not in tombs of Bağçasaray and Eski Yurt of the 16th century but in older mosques in Eastern Crimea of the 14th century.

c. Tomb of Mehmed Bey
Keeps no monumental inscriptions or tombstones inside. The tomb has the look of an octagon with a “tent” roof. Conventionally dated the 16th century.

d. Tomb of Mehmed II Giray
This building is an outstanding monument of the Crimean Tatar monumental art, which has additional historical significance as a family tomb of the Crimean ruling dynasty. Accordingly to the written sources, three Crimean khans (the father, the son and the grandson) were buried in the mausoleum: Mehmed II Giray (1577-84), Saadet II Giray (1584) and Mehmed III Giray (1623-29). Besides the three monarchs at least two their close relatives were laid at the same place: Murad Giray and probably Safa Giray. Two narrative sources of the 17th century directly specify that Eski Yurt (properly Aziz) was a usual place for burials of members of the khan family (11, p.691; 4, pp. 59-68).
No monuments or inscriptions have remained in the mausoleum, even the locations of graves could not be clearly identified on the floor. However a marble fragment of a tombstone of unknown origin kept in the tomb has an exact analogy in the tombstone of Devlet Giray sultan of 1631 in a dürbe of the Bağçasaray Khan Palace.
The mausoleum belongs to the type of classical Ottoman mausoleums of the 16th century (differing, in the same time, with a more laconic decoration). A remarkable architectural feature of the tomb is its double-decked dome known also in some Ottoman mausoleums built by Hoca Sinan.

e. Minber in Aziz
The ground around the “Tomb of Ahmed Bey” had initially the look of a fenced court-yard which enclosed the dürbe and the mosque of Aziz (built in the middle of the 17th century, renewed in 1914 and destroyed in the 1950s). The mosque courtyard was densely filled with graves. The minber, a cathedra for reading prayers, was a part of the architectural complex of the mosque. This small stone tower with high steps is conventionally dated the 16th century though no justification for such dating has been provided.

f. Gravestones from Qırq Azizler
Expedition of the Museum of the Bağçasaray Palace in 1924 moved about 25 grave-stones from the Qırq Azizler cemetery to the Khan cemetery of the Bağçasaray Khan Palace (the exact number of the monuments moved is unknown). The two dozens gravestones saved by Bodaninski are presently the only remained examples from the hundreds of monuments of Qırq Azizler. Any other monuments, left by Bodaniski at their original place, have not remained till now (most likely, all them were used as building material after the 2WW).
Nowadays the collection of Eski Yurt gravestones in the Bağçasaray Historical & Cul-tural State Preserve includes 24 stones from 1316 till 1414 (some gravestones do not show any date or have no carved inscriptions at all). 8 of them show the names of the people buried.
At least three monuments from the moved to the Palace have been lost or stolen since the 1920s. 
It is worthy to note that 3 from the 11 names (this number includes 8 remaining and 3 lost stones) given in epitaphs show origin of buried persons from the city of Qırım, the capital of the Crimean province of the Golden Horde.
The most of gravestones from Qırq Azizler belong to the type of so-called "bicorn" tombstones (there was also another, “column” type, represented among them less widely). The photographic pictures taken by Bodaninski in Aziz show also later monuments shaped like “sarcophagos” with two vertical columns (typical for Crimean Tatar cemeteries of the 17th-19th centuries).
The gravestones from Aziz are decorated with fine stone-carved ornaments of the Selcuq stile. The languages of their epitaphs, sometimes combinated on a single stone, are Arabic, Turkic and (much more seldom) Persian.


4. PRESENT STATE

The mausoleums of Aziz are included into the National List of Immovable Cultural Heritage of Ukraine as protected objects. The buildings urgently need restoration because of natural ruining processes and damages resulted by improper use in the past.
The Bağçasaray Historical & Cultural State Preserve, which carries out restoration of the monuments, has recently compiled the preliminary conception for museefication of Aziz. It is planned to create there a museum of spiritual culture of the Crimean Tatars. Currently this initiative of the Preserve meets strong resistance among the owners of a market, established on the square of Aziz in the Soviet period. The Preserve, state au-thorities and Crimean Tatar public organizations undertake common efforts to dissolve the problem.
A part of the historical site of Eski Yurt still remains empty of modern housing areas and free of industrial use. This leaves possibility for renewing archaeological excavations on the site.
Aiming to popularize the historical heritage of Eski Yurt, the author of this article pub-lished a popular scientific website in Russian, providing information about the monuments of Eski Yurt and its historical significance.