Guide
The Tepsi Minare stands at the southwest corner of the castle mosque inside Erzurum Castle, and it has had three lives. Its inscription shows it was built in the first half of the twelfth century by the Saltukid ruler Ebul Muzaffer Gazi İnanç Biygu Alp Tuğrul Bey, and it was originally the minaret of that mosque, which is the name it has kept for centuries. In the first half of the nineteenth century a clock was fitted to it, and people began calling it the clock tower instead. It also served as a watchtower.
The base is cut stone in three colours. Above it the cylindrical shaft is brick, tapering as it rises, and laid in a basket-weave pattern. The door opening into the inner castle has a flat lintel and a pointed-arched tympanum above it. Near the balcony runs a band of inscription in Kufic script. The balcony itself was added in the nineteenth century and is Baroque in character; the upper part, rising on columns designed at that time, is wooden. The tower is on the Cumhuriyet Caddesi route in the centre of Erzurum, walkable and served by public transport from many parts of the city.
