Caravanserai

A sample floorplan of a Safavid caravanserai.

This article is about the roadside inns. For the album by Santana, see Caravanserai (album). For other features named khan, see Khan.

A caravanserai or khan (Persian: كاروانسرا kārvānsarā, Turkish: kervansaray) was a (usually Persian-inspired or built) roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and South-Eastern Europe.

“	Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.	”
—Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Stanza 17 in the 5th Edition

Architecture

Most typically a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. The courtyard was almost always open to the sky, and the inside walls of the enclosure were outfitted with a number of identical stalls, bays, niches, or chambers to accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise.

Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing, and ritual ablutions. Sometimes they even had elaborate baths. They also kept fodder for animals and had shops for travellers where they could acquire new supplies. In addition, there could be shops where merchants could dispose of some of their goods.

Etymology

The word is also rendered as caravansarai or caravansary. The Persian word kārvānsarā is a compound word combining ''kārvān (caravan) with sara (palace, building with enclosed courts), to which the Persian suffix -yi is added. Here "caravan" means a group of traders, pilgrims, or other travelers, engaged in long distance travel.

The caravanserai was also known as a khan (Persian خان), han in Turkish, funduq in Arabic, and fundaco in Venice.

In music

Loreena McKennitt's album An Ancient Muse features a track titled Caravanserai.

Kitaro has a song called "Caravansary" (Listen:)on his album Silk Road IV: Tenjiku/India (1983). It also appears on the albums Daylight, Moonlight: Live in Yakushiji (2002) and Best of Silk Road (2003).

The term also appears in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance.

Santana released an album named Caravanserai on the Columbia label.

Notable caravansarais

• Khan As'ad Pasha
• Khan Jaqmaq
• Khan Sulayman Pasha
• Khan Tuman
• Khan al-Tujjar (Mount Tabor)
• Khan al-Tujjar (Nablus)
• Khan al-Umdan
• Caravanserai of Sa'd al-Saltaneh
• Rabati Malik Caravanserai
• Hanul lui Manuc

Gallery

Interior of the Caravanserai of Sa'd al-Saltaneh in Qazvin.

Caravanserai of Shah Abbas, now a hotel, in Isfahan. View is from courtyard (sahn).

Sangi caravansara.jpg

Caravanserai Sangi in Zanjan.

A caravanserai in Karaj, Iran of Safavid era

Caravanserai in Shaki, Azerbaijan

Abandoned caravanserai in Neyestānak, Iran

Khan al-Umdan in Acre, Israel

Khan As'ad Pasha in Damascus, Syria

Agzikarahan1.jpg

caravanserai portal near Aksaray, Turkey

See also

• Islamic architecture
• Turkish architecture
• Persian architecture
• Persian gardens and bagh

Further reading

• Branning, Katharine. 2002. The Seljuk Han in Anatolia. www.Turkishhan.org, New York, USA.
• Encyclopædia Iranica, p. 798-802
• Erdmann, Kurt, Erdmann, Hanna. 1961. Das anatolische Karavansaray des 13. Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. Berlin: Mann, 1976, ISBN 3-7861-2241-5
• Hillenbrand, Robert. 1994. Islamic Architecture: Form, function and meaning. NY: Columbia University Press. (see Chapter VI for an in depth overview of the caravanserai).
• Kiani, Mohammad Yusef. 1976. Caravansaries in Khorasan Road. Reprinted from: Traditions Architecturales en Iran, Tehran, No. 2 & 3, 1976.
• Yavuz, Aysil Tükel. 1997. The Concepts that Shape Anatolian Seljuq Caravanserais. In: Gülru Necipoglu (ed). 1997. Muqarnas XIV: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 80-95. Available online as a PDF document, 1.98 MB archnet.org/library/pubdownloader/pdf/8967/doc/DPC1304.pdf.

External links

• www.consideratcaravanserai.net: Text and photos on research on caravanserai and travel journeys in Central Asia and Middle East.

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