25.ULUSLARARASI ORTAÇAĞ VE TÜRK DÖNEMİ KAZILARI VE SANAT TARİHİ ARAŞTIRMALARI
Yazarlar:
Aslı SAĞIROĞLU ARSLAN
Yayıncı:
Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Yayınları
Graves and gravestone; are movable cultural assets that are the title deeds of societies and prove their existence. Since gravestones are movable cultural assets, they are one of the leading historical artifacts that have been destroyed, relocated, or even destroyed by people. In addition, tombs and gravestones are subject to severe deterioration in the face of natural conditions (especially weather conditions, etc.). It is known that the Göktürks and Uyghurs from Central Asian Turkish Civilizations used the gravestone tradition such as balbal, stone grandmother, stone father, menhir, and stamped stone erection. How the Turks adapted this tradition of making gravestones to Islamic culture and how they carried it to the Anatolian Turkish-Islamic geography shows itself in material elements in the historical process. It is understood from the village’s graves and gravestones that the Turks’ beliefs and traditions in the Central Asian culture, belonging to the Turkmen tribes in the Çataloluk Village Cemetery in the Develi District of Kayseri Province, continued this culture. The cemetery is located in Çataloluk Village, 42 km away from the Develi district of Kayseri. Considering the inscriptions on the gravestones in the Çataloluk cemetery, they can be dated to the Anatolian Seljuk and Ottoman Periods. The tombstones in the cemetery area are made of material extracted from the stone quarries in the region. When the tombstones in the cemetery area are examined, there are five typological types. These; Menhir style, cist type tombs, earthen tombs, framed tombs and tombs with witnesses. The most remarkable graves among these are the ones that continue the Central Asian tradition; graves in the form of menhir. On these gravestones, there are stamps of Turkmen tribes such as Salur and Baysungur, processed with scraping technique. The gravestones are located around the registered Karaağaç, which is known to be 700 years old. In addition, there are two gravestones on the trunk of this tree. This statement’s purpose is to document an exciting group of cultural assets in Anatolia and their introduction to the Turkish art history community. The samples of grave and gravestones belonging to the Turkish Period in the cemetery of Çataloluk Village in Develi District of Kayseri constitute the subject of this paper.
