Caravanserai Istanbul
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Caravanserai Istanbul
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The Zincirli Han, Istanbul, Turkey.
View of the central court of the Zincirli Han, one of the urban caravanserais of the Silk Road embedded in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. The Zincirli is the mot famous han in the Bazaar, although in Istanbul there were hundreds, and many of them much much bigger, like the The Buyuk Valide han, not 100 yards away to the north of the Grand Bazaar.
Nowadays the Zincirly han is an enclosed extension of the Grand Bazaar where merchants trade in carpets and jewelry on the ground floor and artisans create these goods in the workshops on the floor above them. A magic place hidden inside a magic place, the Zincirli Han is a bit of a Grand Bazaar secret popular with those ‘in the know’. The courtyard, complete with a marble fountain and trees is particularly attractive, as are the salmon facades of the stores themselves.
Caravanserays and hans were the road hotels of the Silk Road that connected Europe and China, offering safe haven to all the merchants that spread goods, knowledge and culture along that long winding way. Caravanserais were lonely and standalone square fortress-like buildings along the road while hans were their urban counterpart. The structure was similar, a central open court with a fountain and ground floor stances for the animals and goods and a first, and sometimes second, floor for the merchants themselves.
More images of the Roman, Ottoman and Byzantine capital one copy-paste away at https://weston-westmoreland.pixels.com/collections/istanbul
Weston Westmoreland
Uploaded
October 3rd, 2019
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