Restoration work is continuing at Beçin, the medieval city near Milas in Muğla province that once served as the capital of the Menteşe Beylik, with the historic Kızılhan building being prepared as a venue for conferences, symposiums and summer schools, according to a report by the İHA news agency published by local newspaper Hamle on Monday.
Repairs to the city walls, as well as to a tomb (türbe) and its walled cemetery dating from the Menteşe period, have been completed, the report said. The work was carried out with support from the Muğla Governor’s Office’s Investment Monitoring and Coordination Presidency (YİKOB), the state body that oversees public investment projects at provincial level.
Walls, arches and vaults at Kızılhan
At Kızılhan, which the report describes as a distinctive example of Anatolian Turkish architecture, teams are working on the walls, arches and vaults with the aim of preserving the building’s historic fabric. Once restoration is finished, the structure is planned to host academic and cultural events. No completion date, budget or opening date was given.
Kızılhan, whose name means "Red Han", is a two-storey caravanserai and one of two hans that survive in Beçin. It is a plain building that has been partly ruined, with its upper floor collapsed. Caravanserais, or hans, were roadside inns where merchants and travellers stopped with their animals and goods.
A Menteşe capital on UNESCO’s tentative list
Beçin sits on a low hill about 4 km from Milas. The Menteşe Beylik, a Turkmen principality, took the site towards the end of the 13th century and made it its capital. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited in 1333, and most of the monuments that survive today date from the 14th century, among them the Ahmet Gazi madrasa, built in 1375. The Ottomans annexed the beylik in the 15th century, and people continued to live inside the site until the 1980s. The medieval city has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage Tentative List since 2012.
For residents of Milas and the wider Bodrum area, Beçin combines a hilltop fortress with medieval Turkish monuments. The restoration adds to a series of heritage projects around the country, from the Ani Bridge on the Türkiye-Armenia border to the restored Ottoman mint at Topkapı Palace.
For more on life in the area, see our guide to living in Bodrum.
Sources
Photo: Efe Kekikciler / Unsplash License, via Unsplash
