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Dick Osseman | all galleries >> Bursa >> Ulu Cami in Bursa > Bursa Ulu (Great) Mosque Minbar
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Bursa Ulu (Great) Mosque Minbar

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The minber dates from 1400, and was carved by Antepli Hacı Mehmed bin Abdulâziz el Dukki, a renowned woodcarver from Gaziantep (on the Syro-Turkish border). His name is mentioned in one of the inscriptions on the pulpit. Sultan Yıldırım Beyazıt knew about him, because this artist had carved (in 1376) another marvelous pulpit for the Ulu Cami in Manisa, the capital of the Saruhanlı Principality, that Beyazıt conquered in 1390.
This minber is made of walnut that has been darkened with black paint. It is a splendid example of the transition from late-Seljuk style to early-Ottoman.
The ‘kündekari’ technique has been used: pieces of different sizes are worked separately, and then assembled (like a big jigsaw puzzle), without using any glue, split pin or nail. This technique is extremely difficult.

Correspondent: J.M.Criel, Antwerpen.
Sources: ‘Vakıf Abideler ve eski Eserler III’ - Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü, Ankara 1983 & Wikipedia.


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Sabri 19-Jan-2014 08:27
One of the Great Mosque’s many mysteries lies concealed in its pulpit. This pulpit, which exhibits some of the most perfect and magnificent examples of wood carving, is an artistic wonder in its own right. The figures arranged among the geometric motifs worked into its surface are just one aspect of the cloak of mystery that surrounds the pulpit.

For this entire monumental pulpit harbors in its every interstice images representing the Universe. The Solar System, for example, has been carved at the very center of the pulpit’s central geometric design.