Newly Found Funeral Section and Inscriptions of The Sheikh Hayat Al Harrani Tomb

Abstract

Sheikh Hayat el-Harrani Mosque and Tomb is next to the graveyard in the northwest of the outer walls of the ancient Harran city which is currently located in the Harran district of Şanlıurfa province. During the restoration works carried out in the mosque and tomb in 2017 and 2018, burial places were found in the tomb structure. The unearthed burial places consist of three parts, side by side in the north-south direction. These rectangular planned places are covered with barrel vaults. Its vaults are bricked, and Khorasan mortar is used as a binder. Its walls contain a mixture of cut limestone, rubble stone, and brick materials. These places have a forecourt and two burial chambers. The forecourt is descended through a stepped entrance, then the burial chambers are reached. Among the structures numbered in the plan, four graves were identified in burial place no.1. In burial place no.2, a grave that has a gravestone dedicated to Sheikh Yahya Ibn Shebib, whose death year is 589 AH/1193 AD, was found. The gravestone of the Sheikh is made of smooth cut limestone and is designed in a rectangular shape. There is a well-preserved Arabic epitaph of four lines within the frame. The epitaph is written in Ayyubid Naskh calligraphy and the line spacings are separated from each other by thin strips. In addition, four grave structures and gravestones with epitaphs were found during the excavations carried out in the courtyard. The excavations carried out in the tomb enabled the burial place to be revealed as well as the name of the tomb owner Sheikh Yahya and the year of his death to be determined. In this context, the burial places and grave structures unearthed in our study were introduced and the translations of the epitaphs on the gravestones from Arabic to Turkish were given.

Keywords

• sheikh hayat el-harrani mosque and tomb
• sheikh yahya ibn shebib
• gravestone
• ayyubid epitaph
• harran