Emir Saltuk Kümbeti (Üç Kümbetler)

The Saltukids, one of the Turkish principalities founded in Anatolia after the battle of Malazgirt in 1071, ruled Erzurum and its region^4,5. The largest of the Üç Kümbetler (“three kümbets”), behind the Çifte Minareli Medrese in central Erzurum, is traditionally held to be Emir Saltuk's tomb^1,2. No inscription records its builder or date^2,6. TDV says researchers agree it may have been built under the Saltukid emir İzzeddin Saltuk in the second half of the 12th century, and Kültür Portalı gives the late 12th century; Erzurum's culture directorate accepts it as İzzeddin Saltuk's tomb but dates it to the second half of the 13th century^1,2,6. The two smaller kümbets are dated to the 14th century^1,2,6.

Next to the three tombs stands a small square building that Kültür Portalı says has been read either as a kümbet or as a masjid; Erzurum's directorate and TDV count it as a kümbet, perhaps of the 13th century, with an interior of 3.19 by 3.19 m^1,2,6. The Ministry of National Education repaired the kümbets in 1956¹. The Erzurum Archaeology Museum, built between 2018 and 2021, now stands on the site, in the Rabia Ana quarter³. Kültür Portalı and TDV link the animal reliefs with the twelve-animal calendar of the Central Asian Turks, while Erzurum's directorate notes that only five animals appear^1,2,6.

The Emir Saltuk Kümbeti is an octagonal tower over a crypt^2,6. Each of its eight faces ends in a triangular pediment, and above them a cylindrical drum carries a low cap that is closer to a dome than to the usual cone, finished with a stone finial^1,2,6. The walls are of cut stone in alternating colours: Kültür Portalı and TDV speak of two colours, Erzurum's directorate of red, white and grey^1,2,6. Twin round-arched windows open on the four faces that look to the cardinal points, and blind ones on the diagonal faces keep the design symmetrical^2,6. The entrance on the north has a flat lintel under a tympanum decorated with six-pointed stars^2,6.

Eight niches of triangular section sit in the drum above the corners of the octagon, each with a different relief^2,6. Going round from the right of the north door, TDV lists a pair of dragons with intertwined bodies, an animal that may be a bat, an eagle with spread wings, a long-eared animal that may be a hare, a bull's head with a human head between its horns, two plant motifs and a figure with an eagle's head and a human body⁶. Erzurum's directorate reads some of them differently, naming affronted griffins and dragons, a shell and stylised trees of life, and Kültür Portalı also mentions a snake^1,2. A thick twisted moulding runs around the drum, followed by a scalloped border and a row of motifs resembling rams' heads at the foot of the cap².

The kümbet is entered at ground level into an octagonal room lit by four pairs of slit windows set high in the walls, with no mihrab niche². Shell-shaped niches fill the corners at the foot of the wide, high dome, and their insides are coloured red with root dye^2,6. From inside, on the north side, five steps lead down through a small pointed doorway to the crypt, a windowless rectangular room under a barrel vault^2,6. TDV records a sarcophagus in it, while Erzurum's directorate says it holds no grave or sarcophagus and notes that the crypts of the other Erzurum kümbets are entered from outside^2,6.