Recruitment Office Building

The Yozgat Recruitment Office Building stands southeast of Cumhuriyet Square in central Yozgat. According to its inscription, the building was constructed in the Islamic year 1311 (1895–1896 CE), during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II. Built as a two-storey structure, it uses yellow cut stone throughout. The entrance is reached through a colonnaded porch on the north facade, its arches resting on four cylindrical stone columns decorated with leaf motifs where they meet the wall. From the porch, the building is entered through a stone-framed, round-arched wooden door flanked by columns; the arch's keystone takes the form of a scrolled stone element resembling a lion's-mouth relief. The stone door frame carries a vase-and-flower motif set within a wreath, alongside an inscription in old Ottoman Turkish script; round-arched, stone-framed windows flank the door on either side. A bay window descends over the porch on the north facade, its front carrying three stone-framed, round-arched windows, flanked by two more of the same type on each side. Beneath these windows sits the building's three-line marble inscription, its lines separated by ruled borders, recording the date 1311. The triangular pediment above the bay carries the Ottoman state emblem, with Sultan Abdülhamid's tughra (imperial monogram) at its center. The north facade carries eight more round-arched windows on the ground floor and eight on the upper floor; the west facade has six windows on the ground floor and seven above, while the east facade matches the west in window count. At the center of the south facade is a second, stone-framed wooden entrance flanked by one window on each side; the building also has a basement level.