Journal of Art History

Abstract

Hisarköy neighborhood of Sarayköy District in Denizli, Turkey, has a history dating back to the 2nd century BCE. This settlement, known as Attouda in ancient times, was one of the Roman cities and has been continuously inhabited up to the present day. Since its establishment, the city has hosted many civilizations, with the last cultural layer being shaped by the Turks from the 13th century onwards. In the 14th century, the region's borders fluctuated due to the efforts of the Anatolian Seljuk State and the Byzantine Empire to establish dominance in Western Anatolia. Ultimately, in 1429, the area was fully incorporated into Ottoman territory and Hisarköy was attached to the Kütahya Sanjak. Although the administrative divisions of Anatolian lands by the Ottoman Empire varied over the centuries, Hisar maintained its existence as a village connected to larger nearby settlements for many years. The Hisarköy Mosque is an example from the 19th century within this historical process. Located at a prominent point in the center of Hisarköy, the mosque, despite later interventions, reflects the characteristics of its period in terms of its plan layout. Among these interventions, the most notable is the demolition of the upper part of the northern wall of the prayer hall at the first-floor level to expand the gallery to the north. Additionally, the five-arched portico of the mosque has been enclosed with metal frames placed between wooden supports. The original texture, visible only on the eastern facade, is obscured on other facades due to plaster and travertine cladding. Built on a sloping terrain in a southeast-northwest direction, the mosque consists of a rectangular prayer hall and a portico to the north. Although the mosque, covered with a wooden hipped roof, does not have an inscription, a metal plaque above the door bears the date 1880 in Latin letters. However, no inscription, epitaph, or archival document referencing this date has been found. A positive development regarding the mosque, whose construction date is not definitively known, occurred during the 2021 survey surveys. A wooden inscription was found in an annex understood to have been added later at the western corner of the portico. This study introduces the mosque by focusing on its architectural and decorative features and presents some inferences about its construction date based on the data obtained from the wooden inscription. Additionally, the mosque has been compared with similar examples in surrounding villages. The situation of the northern wall of the prayer hall being demolished at the first-floor level to expand the gallery, observed in the mosque at an unknown date, has also been seen in nearby mosques. Efforts have been made to determine the changes made to the mosque, and in this context, a plan sketch of the mosque's current state has been drawn and digitized. It has been understood that old photographs encountered during fieldwork provide valuable information about the mosque's original condition. Restitution attempts have been made to reconstruct the mosque's original state by combining information obtained from photographs and interviews with local residents. Additionally, images that could shed light on the mosque's state before alterations were created using three-dimensional drawing programs and shared in the study. The fact that the Hisarköy Mosque, an example of our rural architectural heritage, has not been addressed in any previous study highlights the unique value of the subject. Furthermore, the wooden inscription found and preserved during fieldwork should not be overlooked as an important tangible data regarding the structure whose construction date is unknown.