The east and west walls of the Çakırtaş Kulyusuf tomb turn about two degrees toward the north and the east. Given that the compass deviation from the true qibla at Iğdır is reckoned at thirty degrees, that turn shows how closely the observation was measured in its day and how carefully it was carried into the building.
The tomb was first studied and published by Yılmaz Önge in 1967. Not one piece survives of the stone cenotaphs he described.
Önge held that the door lintel and the entrance above it had been tampered with. Tuncer disagreed: looked at closely, the joints above and at the sides of the lintel are regular and leave no room for a later alteration; the pivot sockets of the door are still in place in the chamfered stone behind it; and the door opening measures exactly 0.86 by 1.21 metres, which allows for no jamb or lintel other than the coloured stones now there.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Iğdır as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -3.2 °C in January to 26 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (48 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
