The Erzen Hatun tomb tower at Ahlat was built for Erzen Hatun, daughter of Emir Ali, and the provincial directorate calls it the most richly decorated of all the tomb towers at Ahlat. It has two parts. The base holding the burial chamber is square; the chamber is reached down a flight of steps and covered by a mirror vault of cut stone laid in regular courses, lit by three small windows.
The body above has twelve sides, and each side carries a niche with a Bursa arch above it, with a second, inner niche cut within it. In the middle of the sides facing the four directions are large rectangular niches filled with muqarnas. A great many motifs of different kinds appear together on the tomb, and they hold together well: the corner borders join the geometric interlace frieze that runs right round the body above the large side niches. Above that come two further bands, one carrying the Ayat al-Kursi and the other two adjoining bands of rounded and interlaced forms, and the tower finishes in a twelve-sided pyramidal cap.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bitlis as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -4.2 °C in January to 23.1 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in March (196 mm) and lightest in August (7 mm). Long-term means for 2011-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
