The wooden overlapping ceilings of the mosques in Amasya

In the scope of this thesis, thirty one mosques, the earliest of which dates to 1426, with wooden overlapping ceilings were determined in the city center of Amasya, its districts and villages and they were classified and studied considering the construction and styles of their ceiling covers. While the joistings of two ceilings are covered above, the joistings of all the other ceilings are covered below. Among these mosques which were built between 15th century and the last quarter of the 20th century, there are no mosques dated to 16th century with an overlapping ceiling. There are overlapping ceilings in two mosques dated to 17th century, one mosque dated to 18th century and six mosques dated to 19th century. It is noticable that they are compared mainly to the mosques dated to the Republic Period. There are wooden overlapping ceilings in two mosques dated to the first half of the 20th century, five in the third quarter, and four in the last quarter of the 20th century. A wooden ceiling is a kind of quite economical covering which has been used in Anatolia since the ancient times to cover spatial spaces in the form of mainly a square or a rectangular which is almost a square and the spaces rarely in the form of a circle. With the help of wooden joistings, spatial spaces are easily covered using a variety of styles and techniques needing no support dividing the space. They are built using mainly two techniques called straight and overlapping with the exception of the technique of wooden folding ceiling without a cover below and its derivatives. The overlapping technique which can be applied using both wood or bricks to make it possible to obtain various styles mainly in the construction of the ceilings and it provides easy static solutions. For this reason, since the ancient times it has been widely used in architecture to cover spaces. The overlapping technique has mainly two application styles based on the joistings which are parallel supporting joisting and cornered overlapped joisting and both of these two styles are also divided into sub-titles with respect to the construction of the supporting ceiling joistings. It is possible to see the examples of these two styles of wooden overlapping ceilings in the mosques of Amasya. The main ceiling joistings are parallel to one another in Murad II Mosque in Merzifon, a district of Amasya, The Üçler Mosque in the city center of Amasya, Kaleköy Mosque in the city center of Amasya and the Mosque in the Village of Kızılkışlacık. The examples of ceilings with joistings that have cornered joints in the mosques of Amasya can be put into two groups called overlapping ceiling with revolving axis and nested overlapping ceiling. The technique of overlapping ceiling with revolving axis were used in the following mosques: Hanife Hatun Mosque, İlyasköy Mosque, Belmebük Village Mosque, Aydınca Village Mosque, Mahmatlar Village Mosque, Sarılar Village Mosque, Dadı Village Mosque, and Mahmatlar Village Roadside Mosque. The ceiling covers of the following eighteen mosques are nested and overlapping. These are the mosques of Eyüp Çelebi Mosque, Grand Haji Hasan Mosque, Upper Baraklı Village Mosque, Akyazı Village Mosque, Şıhlar Village Mosque, Ortaova Village Mosque, Çavuş Village Mosque, Kayabası Neigbourhood Mosque, Yıldız Village Mosque, İpekköy Village Mosque, Yeşilören Village Mosque, Karasenir Neighbourhood Mosque, Serçoban Neighbourhood Tamlar Mosque, Village Mosque, Köprübaşı Mosque, Aktarla Village Mosque, Kızılca Village Station Mosque, and Sarıyar Village Aşağıova Mosque. The most important outcome of this study is that it has determined that the style of wooden overlapping ceiling with its rooted historical background has been used in a large geographical area extending from Asia to Anatolia including Amasya especially during the Republic Period. Key Words: Amasya, overlapping, ceiling, wooden, joisting