Seyitgazi Museum
Seyitgaz
Turkey
About 30km/19mi southeast of Eskisehir, the site of the once important Phrygian town of Nakoleia crowns a 120m/394ft hill a short distance south of the district town of Seyitgazi. Surrounded by the buildings of a former Dervish convent are a medrese and türbe, burial place of the legendary Arab warlord and national hero Seyit Gazi, the scourge of Byzantium, whose Arab hordes roamed Asia Minor in the early eighth century plundering, robbing and killing. Reputedly a giant, his sarcophagus measures more than 4m/13ft in length. Next to it is a white sarcophagus traditionally held to be that of a Byzantine princess who, having fallen in love with Seyit Gazi, accidently caused his death, afterwards taking her own life. In fact he was killed near Afyon in 719 while campaigning against Constantinople, his inamorata apparently dying of grief. In about 1250 Haçi Bektas, founder of the Bektaç Order of Dervishes, built a Moorish-style convent (enlarged and restored by Selim I in 1510) around the tombs. The mausoleum is still a place of pilgrimage for the Anatolian faithful.