Guide
The Ayaş Ağa Mosque in Amasya was built in 1495 by Ayaş Ağa, chief gatekeeper to Bayezid II, and it is a complex rather than a single building: mosque, medrese, primary school and burial ground. Because it stands in the Şamlar quarter it is also called the Şamlar Mosque. The mosque is square, single-domed, with rubble stone walls and a three-part porch on the north; the middle section of the porch, narrower than those at the sides and covered by a mirror vault, is the entrance. Pointed-arched windows in two rows light the interior. The minaret sits on a hexagonal base, with a brick shaft and a stone balcony — the base is known to be original, the shaft and balcony are later.
The medrese is made up of the rooms enclosing the courtyard north of the mosque on three sides, in the U-shaped plan of the classical Ottoman complex. Along the sides run arcades of thirteen domes carried on twelve cylindrical columns with plain capitals, linked to one another by round brick arches, with the students' rooms ranged behind them; each room has a fireplace and a cupboard. There is no classroom. The wider section at the eastern end, beyond the students' rooms, is the primary school, now used as a library. The burial ground in the garden holds eight graves of simple workmanship, most of them damaged by time; they carry no inscriptions, but some are decorated with geometric patterns and with flower and sword figures.
