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Turk Kulturu ve Haci Bektas Veli - Arastirma Dergisi, vol.99, pp.203-243, 2021 (Scopus)
Karaca Ahmet Sultan Tomb is in Uşak Province, Ulubey District, Karaca Ahmet Village. The tomb is one of the mausoleums of Karaca Ahmet Sultan, also known as Gözcü Karaca Ahmet. The hexagonal planned tomb is covered with an octagonal drum dome. Two peacock figures placed symmetrically on both sides of a tree of life on the entrance door of the tomb are engraved. The bird is a symbolic figure in many cultures from ancient times to the present day. Sometimes he carried the deceased to the other world, sometimes accompanied him or his soul turned into a bird. The bird figure has become a popular motif in the ornamental repertoire of various arts, especially literature. In this study, peacock motif in Karaca Ahmet Sultan Tomb is handled and its place in Turkish culture and iconography is evaluated; the origin and iconographic meaning of the motif in question are emphasized. The arts with human or animal figures, based on shaman and astrological symbols in the Eurasian animal style, have survived for centuries and appear in different regions of Anatolia. While figural examples of this tradition are seen in large numbers in civil architecture, they are rarely but meaningful in religious architecture. The tomb is also a visiting centre where various rituals are performed in honour of Karaca Ahmet’s healer identity-medicine. It is seen that the practices of attachment to the grandfather in the tomb are based on pre-Islamic Central Asian Turkish beliefs due to the elements it carries. The visit to the tomb and the expected help in having children show that this practice and belief is a continuation of the ancestral cult. In addition, similar uses of objects such as hand stones, logs, cheesecloth taken from the sarcophagus, wish stone, which we encounter during the operations performed, are also observed in Turkish practices before Islam. The prayers performed with the sūras (chapter in the Qur’an) and prayers read during the practices performed in the tomb show that practices based on traditional Turkish religion and pre-Islamic Turkish beliefs have gained an Islamic character and in this way the practices have been maintained until today. These liturgical objects and the peacock motif in the mausoleum function both as the visual relics of Karaca Ahmet and as powerful tools with healing and protective properties. With these features, it contributed to the spiritual development of the person visiting the tomb at both psychosomatic and esoteric levels and also helped the desire to contact the site of the sacred.