Located in Saraykent district's Saray neighborhood, the Çınçınlı Sultan Han — also known as the "Old Caravanserai" — survives today in a badly ruined state. The building's west wall has disappeared entirely, and the stone facing has been stripped from the remaining walls, leaving them increasingly thin. Remnants of ancillary structures can be seen to the southwest of the main building. Rectangular in plan and oriented east–west, the caravanserai was built using rubble stone laid in a herringbone pattern with Khorasan mortar, faced with cut stone cladding. Its current condition suggests the building originally comprised four adjoining, vaulted chambers, though because the interior is now completely filled with rubble, it cannot be determined precisely where the vaults were supported or whether an open or enclosed courtyard once stood at its center.
The caravanserai was commissioned in 1240–1241 by Mahperi Hatun, the Seljuk queen mother — wife of Sultan Alaeddin Kayqubad I and mother of Sultan Kayhusraw II. Together with the nearby Çekereksu Caravanserai, built by the same patron around the same time, it forms one of two significant links in Mahperi Hatun's network of charitable foundations across the Yozgat region. Though largely in ruins today, it remains an important historical stop for visitors tracing the trade and lodging infrastructure of the medieval Anatolian Seljuk caravan routes.
Address
Saraykent, Yozgat
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