Carvanserai

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/01/01/07/249
Level Item
Place Thessalonike
Dates 1906-1915
Donor/Creator George, Mr Walter Sykes
Scope and Content Ground plan. Preliminary drawing traced from PL. XXVII in C. Texier, P. Pullan, 'Byzantine Architecture: Examples of Edifices Erected in the East', (London, 1864) and then annotated by W.S. George
Further information The Caravanserai was a square or rectangular chamber-building with a large court and, usually, a single portal. The interior walls of the courtyard were equipped with stalls to accommodate merchandise and the visitors’/travellers’ horses.
In the Caravanserai of Thessalonike the corridor which surrounded the large court gave access on the ground-floor to chambers provided with chimneys while the stalls were housed in the long two-storey building just opposite the gate.
On the three sides of the external façade there was a line of shops. Sultan Amurath II has been identified as its founder however, a closer study of the walling which consists of alternate courses of brick and stone may suggest a date around the 12th c.