Pigments used in Ottoman architecture in 16-17th century

The use of paint on the surfaces of buildings has been seen since ancient times, and many information about the building and its period can be obtained through painted surfaces, such as the technical possibilities of the period in which the building was built, the places where the materials used were supplied, the commercial activities of the country, and the regions with which it interacted. Therefore, painted surfaces can provide a lot of data about buildings, and for this reason, a special sensitivity is required for the protection of these surfaces. While paint applications in historical buildings were originally carried out with paints produced with traditional techniques, synthetic paints are mostly used today for various reasons. This situation damages the structure in the long term and makes it difficult to transfer the original state of the surfaces to the next periods. Therefore, painted surfaces, which directly affect the value of historical buildings, should be protected by applying with techniques appropriate to the original. In the classical period works of Ottoman Architecture, the importance of the interior decoration is also very important. The ornamentation programs, of which the nakkas of the period gave the most rare examples, constitute an important item of the application phase in every restoration work. In this study, a literature review was conducted on the paints and traditional pigments used in the Süleymaniye Mosque, Hekimoğlu Ali Paşa Mosque and Kasımpaşa Güzelce Mosque, which are important works of the 16th and 17th centuries of Ottoman Architecture, and then the results of the laboratory analyzes performed on the samples of these buildings were evaluated and comparisons were made. In this direction, the material items, the places where they were supplied, and the price analysis of the products are examined through a comparative reading method from the Süleymaniye Mosque Construction Books prepared by Ömer Lütfi Barkan, one of the main sources of the period, and the Es'ar Book dated 1640, and other elements that make up the paints along with the original pigments used in the buildings are identified and analyzed.