Architectural and architectural ornament terms in Evliya Çelebi's book of travel

This study aims to identify the architectural and architectural ornamentation terms in Evliyâ Çelebi's Seyahatnâme or "Book of Travels". Evliyâ Çelebi lived in the 17th century and devoted his life to travel. He did not leave his travels in words but wrote them down and left a rich corpus consisting of ten volumes. Evliyâ Çelebi's Book of Travels which provides extremely detailed information in his work, which is the product of great attention and observation, and which is the most integrated with its author, is full of unique materials that introduce the 17th century Ottoman city structure and the architectural texture that shaped these cities. Evliyâ Çelebi created an ethnographic and especially architectural cultural inventory not only of the empire but also of all the countries he visited. The author uses a rich language to describe architectural details. He reveals the architectural approach and terminology of the 17th century with his observations on the styles, functions, aesthetic features and social importance of architectural structures. The technical terms used in the descriptions not only make important contributions to the architectural and art historical terminology of the period, but also illuminate the relevant terminology used today. In this framework, under the heading of architectural terms; architectural building types, building elements, building materials, units of measurement; under the heading of architectural ornamentation terms; ornamental arts terms, artist names, artisan and craftsmanship terms, decorative decoration elements used in buildings, color and motif terms used in decorations were identified. Each term was analyzed and evaluated individually and their meanings were revealed. An important dimension of the study is the determination of the language to which the relevant terms belong, their changes and diversity according to geographies, and their different expressions according to sects, if any. With this research, it has been attempted to show that the Book of Travels is an archival document in terms of 17th century Ottoman architectural and architectural ornamentation terminology, as well as a primary source containing unique examples of architectural and art historical terminology from various nations.