Amasya Hazeranlar Mansion
This guide text has been prepared according to the itinerary of the Hazeranlar Mansion. After the ticket office in the Harem section of Hazeranlar Mansion, the selamlık stairs are reached from the cellar section, from here, you can visit the selamlık Hall and the selamlık section can be visited. After visiting the selamlık section, in a double-wing door opening, the second-floor harem middle hall is reached, and after this floor is visited, the first-floor harem middle sofa is reached by a double-sided staircase, and after visiting the section, the visit to Konak is completed by leaving the box office section again.
HAZERANLAR MANSION
History of the Mansion:
It was built in 1865 by Hasan Talat Efendi, the Treasurer of Amasya Governor Ziya Pasha. Hasan Talat Efendi is the son of Aziz Mahmut Bey, who settled in Amasya after being appointed as a treasurer in Amasya while he was working as an alchemist or chemist in the Ottoman Palace. Aziz Mahmut Bey married a lady named Leyla in Amasya and they had two children called Hasan and Hazeran. Hasan Talat Efendi was later assigned to Albania by the Sultan with another task.
After Hasan Talat Efendi, his sister Hazeran Hanım stayed in the mansion for many years, so it took the name "Hazeranlar". In addition, it is thought that Hazeran's wife was engaged in the trade of wicker chairs called Hazeran, and that's why the mansion took this name.
Another view is that Amasya Treasurer Hasan Talat Bey was a close friend of Ziya Pasha (1864-65), the Governor of Amasya, and Hasan Talat Bey, who was also a poet, lived in the mansion with his three nephews during his lifetime. It is known that Hatice Hanım and her daughter, one of these three sisters, lived in this mansion for many years. The mansion was damaged in the "Erzincan Earthquake" in 1939 and was exposed to the Yeşilırmak Floods of 1944, 1948, and 1952. Hatice Hanım was left alone after her daughter got married and left the mansion. Hatice Hanım divided the interior parts of the mansion to rent the mansion and rented it out. The mansion was neglected for many years and was sold by its owners in 1968.
The new owners of the mansion took action to demolish the mansion and construct a new concrete building in its place, and they began to secretly demolish the mansion. Upon detection of this, it was expropriated in 1976 by the Ministry of Culture, General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums. It was taken under protection as the Ottoman period Mansion.
The history of the mansion; it is depicted as a hand-drawn ornament on the northern exterior triangular pediment of the Selamlık Room on the upper floor of the mansion's selamlık entrance; In the laurel wreath, there was the tughra of the Ottoman Sultan Abdulaziz (1861-1876) and a branched rose depicted as a naturalist in the upper right corner. Again, on the triangular pediment of the northern iwan facing the courtyard above the entrance of the Harem Section of the Mansion, the Ottoman Turkish "Maşallahu Kâne" date of 1283 (1872 Gregorian) was written as a castle work. Whatever Allah wills happen, it is written to protect from evil eyes. Hazeran Mansion was built between 1864 and 1872 in the second half of the 19th century.
The restoration works were started by the Ministry of Culture in 1976, the works were completed in 1979 and the exhibition and arrangement works were completed in 1983 and it was opened to tourists as an "Ethnography-Museum House" on 12 June 1984.
The architecture of the Mansion:
In the city center of Amasya, on the northern shore of Yeşilırmak, the 1 km-long Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman period outer fortification walls of the part of the Harşena Fortress called the Lower or Inner Castle, overlapping the texture and protruding towards the river. The silhouette of the most outstanding examples of the “Amasya Yalı Boyu Konakları” built, creates a painting appearance. Amasya is the only city in Anatolia that does not have a coast to the sea or the Bosphorus but has mansions along the waterfront.
The exit from Hazeranlar Street, which is a traditional Ottoman Street in Konak, İçkale, or Hatuniye Neighborhood, is located at the end of the street that separates to the south. Konak embodies the features of traditional Ottoman civil architecture examples; it is similar to the old houses of Kastamonu, Kula, and Safranbolu. The mansion was built on the basement in the north-south direction, with two stories, with mud-brick filling between the wooden frames, in the half-timbered technique. The top cover is a wooden saddle roof covered with Turkish-style tiles. The mansion consists of the harem and selamlık sections, functionally in accordance with the Islamic understanding and the tradition of old Amasya houses. The mansion has an open courtyard in the north and a garden in the front. The mansion has two main entrances that provide entrance to the selamlık and harem sections. The selamlık section was added to the western facade of the mansion in a longitudinal rectangular plan and was isolated from the harem section.
The Mansion is built on the outer fortification wall of the inner castle part of the Harşena Castle on the side of Yeşilırmak, two-story over the basement, adobe filling between the wooden frame, in the technique of half-timbered, and also covered with wooden saddle roof and Turkish style tiles. The arrangement of the harem and selamlık sections were applied in the majority of the traditional Ottoman old houses of Amasya.
The mansion was built in the classical Ottoman Turkish House plan tradition, with a middle sofa and four iwans. A room is placed at the corners of the four iwans. The rectangular planned rooms placed between the iwan arms were chamfered/cut the sharp corners facing the middle sofa and entrance doors were placed. The harem section reflects the classical “Turkish House” plan with its four iwans “middle sofa” plan on the first and second floors and a rectangular room plan on each side of the four iwans. It is an example of the plplanningcheme that was widely used in the Ottoman capital Istanbul mansions in the 18th century and after II. Mahmut period is reflected in Amasya in the countryside. It is the most outstanding example of this plan type in Amasya. The mansion is similar to Kastamonu, Safranbolu, Tokat, and Kula houses in its plan and exterior arrangement. In this case, the middle sofa/arbor was transformed from a square to an octagon, resulting in a larger and more spacious space. Wide central sofa and iwans; social events of the household of the mansion, wedding, henna entertainment, iftar, etc. used as venues for events. There are eleven in total in the mansion.
It was built on buttresses, protruding outward and with a triangular pediment and a bay window from the end of the first floor of the mansion to the second floor, two on the south side, one on the west side, and one on the north side. Except for the eastern facade of the mansion, the other three facades were built with a bay window, giving movement to the three facades of the building. On all exteriors of the mansion, vertical and horizontal floor divisions, bay windows, and room facades are highlighted with wooden moldings, creating a very symmetrical facade arrangement. All of the eaves under the mansion are covered with wood. A guillotine-type window was used throughout the building.
Courtyard/Living Section:
The courtyard of the mansion is entered through a double-winged wooden door at the end of a narrow street separating from Hazeranlar Street to the south. The open courtyard, surrounded by a high wall, was completely isolated from the outside and closed to the outside, in accordance with the Islamic tradition, so that it could not be seen from the outside. In the western corner of the open courtyard/living space, there is a large hearth niche, which is also used as a summer kitchen. There is a double-sided stone staircase that leads to the first floor of the mansion and the harem section. There is a water well and a spinning wheel in front of this staircase. The harem section opens directly to this courtyard. In the summer, when the temperature in Amasya rises to 40 °C degrees, the people of the house spend their daily life and activities in this cooler courtyard. It was also used as a workshop area. For this reason, these courtyard spaces in terms of living space are called "life". Many of Amasya's traditional old Ottoman houses have open courtyard-living spaces with a tandoor, hearth, water well, and oven units.
There is a double-sided stone-stepped staircase that provides access to the harem section of the mansion. In the eastern corner of the courtyard, a few stone steps descend to the hayloft in the basement. The hayloft section, where there are nine wooden pole carriers, is an example of the common application of the basement floor, which is used as a barn in Amasya rural architecture, in the mansion. Through a door to the west of the Samanlık area, one enters the Develik section. It is a place with a large pointed arched window on the west façade where the Hatuniye Mosque is located and covered with a vault. It is thought that the guests or household members who came to the mansion were used as a place where camel and passenger-load soldering irons were housed.
Today, the mansion's hayloft and camel section are used as a picture gallery. The front garden of the mansion on the edge of Yeşilırmak is reached with a door opened from the south wall of the mansion's haystack. In the garden, there is a section called boathouse, where five wooden columns are connected to each other with a wooden Bursa arch. The upper floor of this section was used as a room and as a kitchen space. On the south side of this barn space, there is a window opening into the city wall and a door opened to the west of the same south wall, the boathouse section where five wooden pillar carriers are connected to each other with a Bursa arch, and the front garden of the mansion. The wooden carrier facade arrangement made to move the part of the mansion that is carried outside the city wall to its front garden is a rare application among the old Ottoman houses in Amasya.
Selamlık Section:
The Selamlık section was built in a rectangular plan along the western facade of the mansion and consists of three rooms, a gazebo/saloon, and a hall. The Selamlık lower hall/pitch is reached through a double-winged wooden door, which is accessed by a brick-paved multi-step staircase rising upwards from the courtyard to the west of the Sibyan School at the edge of the Hazeranlar Mansion. This place is smal, and has a very narrow and small window pantry room. After the Selamlık landing, you can reach the Selamlık hall (arbor) with very steep and narrow wooden steps. To the right of this hall is the selamlık room.
The Selamlık room is the pre-reception room where the male guests coming from outside the mansion are hosted before they are accepted by the gentleman of the mansion, and sherbet, ayran, tea, coffee, and treats are served. There is a hearth on the east side of the room and a sherbet bowl decorated with plaster on it. Next to the hearth niche, there are wooden-covered closet sections with right and left double channels extending up to the ceiling of the room. The western side of the room is furnished with wooden ottomans, kilim corner beds on the sofa, traditional Ottoman rugs and curtains on the floor, and especially ethnographic works. It is the place where guests from outside are kept waiting before they are taken to the Main Room. The Selamlık room is quite bright and spacious with its six guillotine-style windows that face Hazeranlar Street and the Hatuniye Mosque. The room ceilings, which are quite high, are wooden inverted ceiling coverings.
Selamlık Moment/Study Room:
This room is a small room to the right of the very narrow selamlık corridor, in which there is a small sofa on the west of the island, and behind the wooden door, there is a wooden shelf with two compartments. There is no stone oven in this room. It should probably be a place where guests who come to the Selamlık section are hosted as boarders. At the end of the narrow corridor is the main room with a double-leaf door. On the left of the narrow corridor, there is a double-leaf wooden door that connects to the harem, and a wooden landing console right in front of it that allows food containers to be placed.
Selamlık Main Room:
The main room is in the soutsouthwestner of the Mansion, facing the Hatuniye Mosque and Yeşilırmak, and at the same time it is a place that can easily see the opposite side (south) of the city. It is an exceptional corner of the Mansion, where the owner of the house welcomes the most important guests from outside and where long and important conversations are held. There is a hearth on the north wall of the main room and a plaster sherbet cup on it, and wooden cupboards on its right and left. On the south facade, on a sofa and two lifeless mannequins on a sofa, the moment where verbal conversations with the owner of the mansion and the reading of poems and mawlids was revived. The floor of this room is furnished with ethnographic works of 19th century rugs, carpets and curtains. The reverse ceiling coverings of the room are original. In the middle of the room, a traditional floor table, copper brazier and samovar, Ottoman period mirror and rifle and sword are exhibited on the wall. It is the largest and most ostentatious room of the mansion. It is the largest and most ostentatious room of the mansion.
Second Floor Harem Section:
This section is accessed through the double-winged door on the left of the selamlık hall and a double-sided wooden staircase on the west iwan of the first-floor selamlık section and the middle sofa from the western iwan of the selamlık section. The planning scheme, in which the middle sofa has four iwans and the four rooms between the arms of the iwan, has been applied, as in the lower floor selamlık section of the second-floor harem section. Of the four iwans, the western iwan is a double-sided landing that connects to the stairs and the selamlık section, while the eastern iwan includes washbasins and toilets, a southern iwan is a unit used as a summer residence, and it overlooks the Yeşilırmak River, the front garden of the Mansion and the magnificent city view to the south of Amasya City.
Second Floor Harem North Iwan:
It overlooks the front entrance courtyard and is also used as a summer living room. Here, 19th-century local iwan arrangement was made with a model dressed in a traditional skirt, a plaster decorated mirror on the wall, an oil lamp on the lamp holder, a coffee table in the middle, and a traditional table against the wall on the side. Again, there is a table on the carpet placed in the center of the middle sofa opposite. There is a passionflower ornament on the ceiling of the upper floor middle sofa. Except for this passionflower motif, there is no decoration in the mansion.
Second Floor Harem South Iwan:
Ottoman ceramic pottery is exhibited in a traditional wooden buffet on the left. Opposite it, there is a sofa, a coffee table on a hand-woven traditional Ottoman period carpet on the floor, a carpet pillow on a wooden Ottoman, and there are cross-stitched covers, velvet curtains, and two lifeless mannequins on a sofa dressed locally. It is known that in the 19th century, in Amasya during the Ottoman period, music, qanun, ud, and tambur sounds were heard from almost every house of aristocratic families. The music meeting and entertainment tradition of the mansion ladies in the middle hall and the southern and northern iwans are held in this cooler area during the long summer months. These spaces were used as social spaces in the Ottoman period mansions.
Second Floor Harem Dowry Room:
As is the tradition in the provinces and centers of Anatolia, after they reach puberty, young girls knit many items until they reach the age of marriage (coffee table covers, towels, curtains, cheesecloths, cross-stitch, and household items with their own hand labor) that they will use in their own home when they get married. In addition, she exhibits these dowry, which she prepared during the wedding process, including other dowry items given to her by the press, by hanging them on the walls in her own "dowry room" or by placing them inside the room. On the last day of the wedding, these dowries are collected and put in the chest, and sent to the boy's house. It is one of the most attentive and important rooms of the mansion after the main room. Again, carefully selected items are displayed and placed with care.
In the dowry room, three lifeless mannequins were dressed in traditional Amasya bridal gowns, and the moment of applying henna to the bride was revived. Lifeless mannequins were holding traditional embroidered napkins and henna aprons. In addition, the room is furnished with an Ottoman hand-woven carpet, a console against the wall, a wall clock, a dowry chest on the floor, velvet curtains on the window, and carpet cedar covers.
Second Floor Harem Servant Room:
The upper floor harem section is the room between the north and the east iwan and overlooks the forecourt and is the room where the people who serve the harem section stay. Inside the room, there is a stove and a sherbet bowl on it, a wooden cupboard on both sides, and a wooden-covered ghusl house on the right.
During the exhibition and arrangement of the mansion, accessory materials such as crowns, bracelets, and bags made of silver belonging to the Ottoman period are exhibited in two small and medium showcases. In addition, traditional hand-woven Ottoman period carpet prayer rugs are exhibited on the walls of the room.
Second Floor Harem Parents Bedroom:
It is one of the most ostentatious rooms between the southern iwan and the eastern iwan and faces the Yeşilırmak River. On this island, as in the others, there is cedar, a hearth, a wooden cupboard, and a bathing cubicle unit in a wooden cabinet. On the bedroom floor, a local Ottoman hand-woven carpet, a bride in local clothes trying to put her baby to sleep in a wooden local cradle, and an old mother-in-law reciting the Qur'an on the sofa, on the right, a local bedspread pillow on a brass (yellow metal) bed with a mosquito net with its velvet curtains, the traditional bedroom and the people of the house preparing for bed are animated.
Upper Floor Harem Section Living Room:
It is the room located on the upper floor south iwan and west iwan room and facing south to the Yeşilırmak coastal beach, south of the city, and the front garden of the Mansion by the river. In ancient times, it was arranged as a room where neighborhood visits were common and the women of the household of the long winter nights gathered to chat and chat. In this living room, are the places where they drink tea, and coffee, eat fruit and nuts and have a pleasant conversation. This room, as in the other rooms, was arranged by dressing the lifeless mannequins in clothes from the Amasya region and furnishing the ethnographic materials of the Museum.
I. Floor (Entrance) Harem Section:
From the open courtyard, which is the summer living area and workshop, a double-sided stone staircase leads to the stair landing, and from there to the northern (entrance) iwan of the harem section and the middle hall with a double-winged wooden door.
In the lower floor harem section; a plan consisting of a central sofa, four iwans, and a room placed between the iwan arms was implemented. The corners of the rooms, which are placed on the iwan arms, facing the middle hall, are beveled and the entrance doors to the rooms are placed.
The northern iwan is the place that provides access to the lower floor harem section from the courtyard. Toilets and washbasins are placed on the eastern iwan, and stairs leading to the second floor are placed on the western iwan. The south iwan overlooks the southern view of the city with the front garden of the mansion and Yeşilırmak.
In the lower floor harem section; there is a winter kitchen, a master living room, and to the right of the south iwan there is a Mabeyn (felted) living room consisting of two intertwined rooms and a Mabeyn bedroom. To the right of the western iwan, the cellar and the stairs that provide access to the selamlık section and a door to the selamlık stone are reached.
On the Lower Floor of Harem Middle Sofa; in the middle showcase, women's jewelry and accessories used during the Ottoman period, and metal kildanlık and soap dish clogs. On the south iwan walls, 19th-century Ottoman period (1893) hand-woven Caucasian carpets and on the south iwan cedar traditional carpet pads, lace pillow covers and curtains, traditional 19th century iwan arrangement was made. In the showcase in front of the stairs, shalwar, chador and crepe, which were women's street clothes in the 19th century in Amasya, are exhibited on a mannequin.
In the Lower Floor Parents' Living Room; in room, a traditional living room in a house with a large patriarchal family, a floor table was set up on traditional rugs using mannequins. On a copper tray on this table; there are copper pans, pots with terracotta, mannequins dressed in traditional Ottoman bridal clothes, housewives getting ready to eat, and there is a 19th-century European stove made of ceramics next to the stove. In general, a system is used in the mansion, where the wood burned in the hearth becomes embers, and the embers are heated by placing them in a copper brazier and placing in the room.
Lower Floor Kitchen Section:
It is the place where daily meals are prepared by the servants for the households in the harem section and the guests who come to the greeting section. There are traditional clothes of 19th-century Ottoman cuisine dressed on lifeless mannequins, there is a floor table in the middle, a stove where the food is cooked, copper pots placed on the shelves, pans, pitchers, and pots. On the floor, daily kitchen utensils are exhibited (jug, terracotta jar, etc.) on a light rug.
Downstairs Parent Living and Bedroom:
The room between the south and west iwans of the lower floor is entered from the middle hall, and the floor of the front room is covered with terracotta square plates and is also called the felted room. There is a hearth, cupboard, and cedar, local rugs, and carpet pillows on the cedar and on the floor, the grandfather of the house was animated while sitting and resting on the cedar.
The bedroom is entered through a door on the west of this room. In addition, items and tools reflecting the periodic history of the 19th century Amasya mansion were exhibited in the other places of the mansion. Among these items, are embroidered curtains, ottomans and cedar covers, bed quilt pillows and bedspreads, copper plated copper tray barbecue and samovar, carpet, rug console, table, chairs, kerosene lamp, wall clock, stove, ready-made baskets, and glass carboys, chests, chandeliers, etc. functional items used in daily life are exhibited.
