Between Local Tradition and Regional Exchanges: Stucco Decoration in Dervish Lodges from the Inner Pontos at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century / Yerel Geleneklerden Bölgesel Etkileşimlere: On Beşinci Yüzyılın Başında Orta ve Doğu Karadeniz Bölgelerindeki Dergâhlarda Ustuka Esintileri

Abstract

Built between the 1370s and the 1410s, the dervish lodges of Lulu ibn ʿAbdallah in Tazya and of Horozoğlu Ahmed Bey in Tokat are partially ornamented with refined stucco decorations that have remarkable similarities. This corpus illustrates the production of stucco in medieval Anatolia, a material still understudied, as well as the progressive standardization of the architecture of dervish lodges during a transitional period that witnessed the emergence of the Ottomans in the former Eretnid realm. Focusing on these two case studies from the Inner Pontos region, this paper argues that such production is rooted at the local scale. Moreover, the study of such ornamentation also present in early Ottoman dervish lodges sheds new light on the artistic exchanges and circulations at a regional scale, deconstructing the historiographic border isolating central Anatolia from the emerging Ottoman Empire.