60 ARCHAEOLOGY • March/April 2018
LETTER FROM HUNGARY
Most scholars, however, dismiss the
story as folklore.
Regardless of how Suleiman’s body
was handled, the place where he died
emerged as meaningful. His successor,
his son Selim II, soon ordered that a
tomb be built to honor Suleiman. “The
construction of this tomb had great
symbolism,” says Ali Uzay Peker, pro-
fessor of architecture at Middle East
Technical University in Istanbul, who
has also worked at Turbek. “It was at
the border between the Ottoman and
Habsburg realms in eastern Europe.
Hence it aroused spiritual attachment
to the land.”
A mosque, an Islamic dervish
monastery, and a military barracks
were built around the tomb, according
to a 1664 sketch by Pal Esterhazy,
a Hungarian military commander.
A caravansary where traders and
travelers could leave their horses,
shops, a bathhouse, and other
buildings were then
established around
the inner core of
the complex to
accommodate a
growing number
of Muslim
pilgrims. These
pilgrims came
mainly from
Turkey and
elsewhere in the
Balkans, according
to the descriptions of
Evliya Celebi, the famous
Turkish traveler who journeyed
for 40 years around the lands of
the Ottoman Empire, recording his
observations in the epic Seyahatname,
or “Book of Travels.”
Historical accounts also indicate
that ascetic practices of Sufism
developed at Turbek, and that it
became an important center of
Islamic mysticism in the region.
Several influential mystical books
were written there, and among the
pilgrims were members of other Sufi
orders. Contemporary documents
attest that about 60 Ottoman
soldiers, who lived in a
barracks adjacent to
the mosque, tomb,
and monastery,
faithfully guarded
the area.
Although
other mosques
and dervish mon-
asteries were built
in Hungary, Turbek
was unique because
it was set up as its
own settlement, outside
Szigetvar. This breaks with
the overall pattern of Ottoman
residents simply moving into fortified
areas they had conquered, as hap-
pened in the cities of Pecs and Buda,
on the Danube River. Fodor says,
“The shrine and the town around it
completely differed from the usual
Ottoman centers that emerged in
Hungary at that time.”
By the late seventeenth century, the
Ottomans were slowly losing their grip
on power in Hungary as the Habsburgs
began to win more battles, eventuallypushing the Turks out of the country.
Ottoman life at Turbek came to
an end in 1693 , when it was taken
over by Habsburg forces and almost
completely destroyed. Turbek was
reduced to a memory, and ultimately
a legend—although through the
centuries there have been stories of
locals digging in search of Suleiman’s
organs, which they had heard were
buried in a golden bowl.A
rchaeologists had long
wondered where Turbek
actually stood, and if there was
anything left of it. There have been
abundant, yet conflicting, theories
about its location. Since 1913 , a plaque
outside St. Mary’s Roman Catholic
Church near Szigetvar has declared,
in both Hungarian and Turkish, that
the building was established on the
land where Suleiman’s heart was
buried. Another local legend claims
that his organs were interred on the
banks of the Almas Stream. There, in
1994 , a symbolic tomb of Suleiman
was created as part of the Hungarian-(continued on page 62 )A 1664 sketch (above), by the Hungarian military commander and prince Pal
Esterhazy shows the layout of Turbek. It helped archaeologists identify the ruins
found under the vineyard as Turbek. A 16th-century portrait (below) of Suleiman.