Aslanhane Mosque, also called the Ahi Şerafettin Mosque, stands beside Ankara Citadel in Ulus, in the Altındağ district, and dates from 1290, in the Anatolian Seljuk period. It belongs to the group of Anatolian mosques built with wooden posts and beams, and Türkiye's tourism agency counts it among the oldest mosques still standing in Türkiye.
Its formal name comes from Ahi Şerafettin, whose tomb faces the building. The name people actually use comes from that tomb as well: an ancient marble lion is set into its wall, and aslanhane means the lion's house.
At the forty-fifth session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, held in Riyadh, the mosque was inscribed on the World Heritage List. It is the second cultural property in Ankara to enter the list, after Gordion.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Ankara as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.4 °C in January to 23.6 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (52 mm) and lightest in August (13 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
