The water history of Erzurum

Water was drawn from natural springs in the foothills and carried to the neighbourhoods and fountains through earthenware or stone pipes. Closed pipe systems were preferred so that the water was protected from outside contamination. Unlike the imperial public works of the capital, Erzurum's fountains were built entirely through the charity of benefactors and administrators. The city's tradition of water structures and fountains runs unbroken from the Anatolian Seljuk period to the final phases of the Ottoman era.

According to its inscription, the Şabahane Fountain was built in 1556, during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, by a man named Yakup. It is the oldest Ottoman work in Erzurum to have reached us with its inscription intact. Its water is said locally to help eye and kidney ailments; the spring emerges just below the castle and reaches the fountains over a very short course.

The great importance Islam attaches to water, and the requirement of cleanliness before worship, brought Erzurum's water architecture and its culture of charity to their height. In this century the fountain usually rose as part of the same endowment as the mosque. The endowment record of the Hacı Cuma Mosque, dated AH 1040 / AD 1630, carries the fountain's age back to the 17th century, and the Mehmet Kethûda Fountain is thought to have been built in AH 1058 / AD 1648, the year the Gürcü Mehmet Paşa Mosque was erected.

The era of Çeteci Abdullah Paşa, foremost among the benefactors who commissioned water structures and fountains in Erzurum, is one of the high points of the city's water works. The fountains were built both against walls and free-standing, richly worked in stone. In the same century Hacı Mehmet Ağa built his fountain at Gürcükapı with a ten-line endowment inscription in thuluth script across its pediment, and endowed many shops and inn rooms so that his charitable works would endure.

In this century the fountain became common property of the neighbourhood. Cafer Ağa built his in 1802; Hüseyin Ağa rebuilt his and restored its flow in 1823, and lies buried in the cemetery behind it. The fountain built by Gülahmet Ağa early in the century is known locally as the Camels' Fountain. Hacı Dede Ağa built one fountain in 1868 and another towards the end of the century.

The fountains revived by the municipality in the Republican era are those where historic pipe lines and lost springs were traced again and reconnected to the city supply and to their original sources, so that the surviving cultural heritage could be preserved and passed on. With close to two hundred historic fountains, Erzurum today has the character of an open-air museum, and stands as the most tangible living proof of a deep-rooted civilisation built jointly by water and by faith.