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CARAVANSERAI

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 303 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CARAVANSERAI , a public See also:

building, for the shelter of a See also:caravan (q.v.) and of wayfarers generally in See also:Asiatic See also:Turkey. It is commonly constructed in the neighbourhood, but not within the walls, of a See also:town or See also:village. It is quadrangular in See also:form, with a dead See also:wall outside; this wall has small windows high up, but in the See also:lower parts merely a few narrow See also:air-holes. Inside a See also:cloister-like See also:arcade, surrounded by cellular See also:store-rooms, forms the ground See also:floor, and a somewhat lighter arcade, giving See also:access to little dwelling-rooms, runs See also:round it above. Broad open flights of See also:stone steps connect the storeys. The central See also:court is open to the See also:sky, and generally has in its centre a well with a See also:fountain-See also:basin beside it. A spacious gateway, high and wide enough to admit the passage of a loaded See also:camel, forms the See also:sole entrance, which is furnished with heavy doors, and is further guarded within by massive See also:iron chains, See also:drawn across at See also:night. The entry is paved with flagstones, and there are stone seats on each See also:side. The court itself is generally paved, and large enough to admit of three or four See also:hundred crouching camels or tethered mules; the See also:bales of merchandise are piled away under the lower arcade, or stored up in the cellars behind it. The upstairs apartments are for human lodging; cooking is usually carried on in one or more corners of the quadrangle below. Should the caravanserai be a small one, the merchants and their goods alone find See also:place within, the beasts of See also:burden being See also:left outside. A See also:porter, appointed by the municipal authority of the place, is always See also:present, lodged just within the See also:gate, and sometimes one or more assistants.

These form a guard of the building and of the goods and persons in it, and have the right to maintain See also:

order and, within certain limits, decorum; but they have no further See also:control over the temporary occupants of the place, which is always kept open for all arrivals from See also:prayer-See also:time at See also:early See also:dawn till See also:late in the evening. A small gratuity is expected by the porter, but he has no legal claim for See also:payment, his See also:maintenance being provided for out of the funds of the institution. Neither See also:food nor provender is supplied. Many caravanserais in See also:Syria, See also:Mesopotamia and See also:Anatolia. have considerable architectural merit; their See also:style of construction is in See also:general that known as Saracenic; their massive walls are of hewn stone; their proportions See also:apt and See also:grand. The portals especially are often decorated with intricate See also:carving; so also is the prayer-See also:niche within. These buildings, with their belongings, are See also:works of charity, and are supported, repaired and so forth out of funds derived from pious legacies, most often of See also:land or rentals. Some-times a See also:municipality takes on itself to construct and maintain a caravanserai; but in any See also:case the institution is tax-See also:free, and its revenues are inalienable. When, as sometimes happens, those revenues have been dissipated by peculation, neglect or See also:change of times, the caravanserai passes through downward stages of See also:dilapidation to See also:total ruin (of which only too many examples may be seen) unless some new charity intervene to repair and renew it. Khans, i.e. places analogous to inns and hotels, where not lodging only, but often food and other necessaries or comforts may be had for payment, are sometimes by inaccurate writers confounded with caravanserais. They are generally to be found within the town or village precincts, and are of much smaller dimensions than caravanserais. The See also:khan of Asad See also:Pasha at See also:Damascus is a See also:model of constructive skill and architectural beauty.

End of Article: CARAVANSERAI

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