Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery

Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery, located in the Ahlat district of Bitlis, is the world's largest Turkish-Islamic cemetery belonging to the medieval period. Today, the cemetery is an open-air museum and has been included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Tentative List. There are approximately 8200 tombstones in various forms in the Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery, which covers an area of 210 decares. 118 of these tombstones are monumental. There are also graves in the form of cist with or without witnesses in the cemetery. There are also tombs made in the form of chambers dug underground and similar to the Central Asian Turkish tomb types. The history of Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery dates back 1000 years. It has been determined that the cemetery existed even before the Marwanids. It was revealed that the burials belonging to different nations and communities, such as Armenians, Rojekis, Dilmaçoğulları, Saltuks, Ahlatşahs, Mervânîs, Bedlis Principality, Ayyubids, Seljuks and finally Ottomans, who ruled the region throughout history, were buried in the cemetery. Alongside Muslim graves, and perhaps more, Christian and Yazidi burials have also been found. They are known for their rectangular prism-shaped tombstones, which are larger than the usual tomb sizes, reach 3.50 meters in height, and have ornaments on each side. At the entrance of the area, there is an archaeological investigation center affiliated to the Ahlat Museum Directorate. Archived on the Wayback Machine site on 19 August 2021. After the cemetery was included in a project carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Yüzüncü Yıl University, maintenance, repair and renovation works started in 2010. During the maintenance and repair works, the inscriptions of 700 tombstones have been deciphered so far. One of the greatest features of the Ahlat Seljuk Cemetery is the tombstones, which are much larger and longer than the usual tombstones. The height of some tombstones reaches 3.5 meters. There are remarkable decorations on each side of the tombstones. These tombstones are decorated with geometric patterns and shapes such as dragons, palmettes and oil lamps from the Central Asian culture of the Turks.