Photo Essay: The Unique Ottoman Gravestones of Istanbul, Turkey

Walking around any old cemetery has always turned out to be a lesson for me – in terms of local customs, tombstones, designs, local history, culture, genealogy and design. With shortage of space and paucity of time, most modern cemeteries are built to to be completely utilitarian, but in many older cities you still stumble upon ancient cemeteries that were definitely more than just graveyards to bury the death. And on our recent trip to Istanbul, Turkey we came across the Ottoman culture of cemetery and tombstone design.

Ottoman tombstones at the Sulemaniye Mosue, Istanbul, Turkey

At the entrance to the Süleymaniye Mosque we saw these unique vertical tombstones with a lot of design at the top and beautiful calligraphy and carvings in the body. We didn’t have a guide with us and didn’t know much about this place but were intrigued enough to research on it once we were back. Online research and articles, explained that in the Ottoman culture, tombstones were were an art form and a reminder about importance of life to people. These tombs were built in the middle of neighbourhoods or at the entrance to the mosque to remind people about the realty of death and to celebrate life.

Ottoman tombstones at the Sulemaniye Mosue, Istanbul, Turkey. Notice the different headgear across headstones.

Beautiful calligraphy and carving, Ottoman tombstones at the Sulemaniye Mosue, Istanbul, Turkey.

For the Ottomans, each tombstone was unique in its own way as it represented the biography of the person buried under it. Each grave typically had two tombstones – a small vertical footstone and a large vertical headstone with Arabic writing on both sides. The headstone was topped with the representation of the headdress of the deceased and described the sex and station of the deceased. The footstone was dedicated to their show of faith. Interestingly the tombstones of the men were topped with large stone turbans, in a range of the Ottoman civil, military and religious hierarchies and there were turbans of a paşa, a Sufi dervish (different head gear for different orders), a soldier / janissary or a eunuch. Headstones of women’s graves were decorated with flowers and topped with oriental hats or draped with simple scarves. Many of the graves had beautiful carvings and elaborates obituary inscriptions which we didn’t understand but read online that some were poetic, some touching while some just amusing and even irreverent.

Close up of an Ottoman tombstones at the Sulemaniye Mosue, Istanbul, Turkey

We kept seeing these concrete tombstones until we saw one which was green in colour with gold gilding. This turned out to be the headstones of the grave of Sultan Süleyman II, who built this mosque. It seems green was the colour used for the graves of intellectuals or scholars. 

Notice the green coloured tombstone in the left, Ottoman tombstones at the Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey. Also notice the design of the Sufi hat in the one next to the green tombstone. Each Sufi order was represented bu their unique hat. 

Another beautiful grave here was one that belonged to a young woman Fatma Müşerref Hanım from Thessaloniki. She died when she was 17 years old and was engaged but not married, hence her headstone has a bride’s veil to symbolise that she died before she got married and the written part explained how she died. On the foot stone was carved a broken rosebud symbolising death at an early age. so poignant.

A beautiful gravestone of. a young woman Fatma Müşerref Hanım from Thessaloniki, Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

Ottoman sultans and their families didn’t have gravestones, but their own tombs or türbes with elaborate tile work in the interiors. The turban or fes they wore were put on the top of their graves.

Interiors of a tomb / türbe of a Sultan, Suleymaniye mosque, Istanbul, Turkey. The white turban in the window is at the top of the grave. 

This cemetery was in a beautiful setting and we could have walked around here for hours. I so wish I had known about these tombstones while I was there as I would have loved to explore these in more detail. But anyways, look forward to adding this for my next trip to Istanbul 🙂