Asset ID: 86461093 / Allen Lee Taylor / Dragon door knocker

Artuklu Palace or Artukid Palace or Artuqid Palace (Turkish : Artuklu Sarayı ) was the palace of Diyarbakır branch of the Turkish Beylik and dynasty of Artukids who ruled eastern Anatolia and Jazira in the 12th and 13th centuries and situated in the present-day İçkale neighbourhood Diyarbakır urban zone within the compound of Diyarbakır City Walls . Built during the reign of the Bey of Artuklu Nasreddin Muhammed (1200–1222) and partially excavated in the 1960s, the main body of the palace is today still buried under a mound.
This palace was also where, as his father before him, the groundbreaking Arab Muslim scholar, inventor , and mechanical engineer Al-Jazari had worked for 30 years and was the place, inspiration and context of many of this inventions and devices. Surrounded by gardens, rich in amenities as well as in decorative and artistic elements (such as statues, with a number of scholars defining a period of less strict observance of ban on human representation in the early centuries of Islam ) and also in eccentricities, itself perhaps inspired by a tradition dating back to the Umayyad palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar in Jericho , the palaces of the Artukids provided models for the Mameluks later. There are further Artukid palatial residences in Mardin , Hasankeyf and Palu whose remains stand, but this one in Diyarbakır is usually referred to as the "Palace" of the sons of Artuk. The palace was used as a prison in the beginning of the Ottoman rule (16th century) until it fell into decay and gradually disappeared under the present-day Virantepe mound.
Partial excavations on the palace site were carried out in 1961 under the direction of the art historian and Ottoman archaeologist Oktay Aslanapa . Important ruins found during the excavation, such as part of the palace garden and the clear outlines of the architectural system of Turkish baths were not conserved and disappeared over time. The vestiges were also externally studied of recent date using computer technologies.

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