Kesik Minare

About Kesik Minare

The Kesik Minare, the Broken Minaret Mosque, also called the Korkut Mosque or Cumanin Mosque, is the monument in Kaleici, Antalya's old town, that best expresses the city's layered history. It began as a Roman temple in the second century CE, was converted in the Byzantine period into a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was heavily damaged in the seventh century during the wars between the Arabs and Byzantium, and was repaired in the ninth century. When the Seljuks of Rum took Antalya in the early thirteenth century the church became a mosque and the minaret was added. In 1361 the Crusader king of Cyprus seized the city and it was consecrated as a church once more, then returned to being a mosque under the Ottomans in the time of Prince Korkut, son of Sultan Bayezid II, whence one of its names. In 1896 a fire destroyed the main building, leaving only the minaret with its top gone, which earned it the name Broken Minaret, and the complex stood in ruins for more than a century. Restoration began in 2018, the minaret's cone and the roof were rebuilt in 2019, and the building officially reopened as a mosque on 5 March 2021, the anniversary of the Seljuk conquest of Antalya, receiving worshippers for the first time in nearly 125 years. Its walls still show the Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman phases of construction.

Where:

Antalya, Türkiye