An underground mosque with water beneath it
A carved-stone prayer hall with spring water still running under the floor since around 1282, back in use for prayer since 2017.
Some seven metres beneath the lanes of Gaziantep's old bazaar sits a small mosque with water still running under its floor, as it has since the thirteenth century. This is the Pişirici Kastel, and the word has nothing to do with castles: a kastel is a buried room fed by the livas, rock-cut channels that carried spring water into the city without losing it to a summer heat that pushes towards forty degrees. It is thought to have been built around 1282, carries no dated inscription, and is counted as the oldest kastel left in the city and the best known. You go down thirty to forty stone steps, the air cools abruptly and the bazaar goes quiet. Below is a prayer hall with a carved stone ceiling and water moving beneath it, ringed by a double-chambered pool that kept clean and used water apart, washing rooms, an ablution space, lavatories and even a corner set aside for laundering wool and clothes. It was, in effect, a public utility that folded worship, washing and rest into a single underground room. The white stone and pointed arches are Seljuk in character, and the place is smaller than its reputation suggests. What sets it apart is that it is not a ruin: the regional Foundations directorate restored it in 2006, Şahinbey municipality then readied it, and in 2017 the mescit went back into use for prayer after roughly eighty years shut. Gaziantep once had about twenty kastels, built between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. More than half vanished when piped water arrived in the 1930s; six survive, and together with the livas network they went onto UNESCO's Tentative List in 2018. Entry is free and the visit takes fifteen to thirty minutes, so treat it as a stop on a walk between Gaziantep Castle, the Tekke Mosque and the coppersmiths' bazaar rather than an outing in itself. Children enjoy it because it feels like descending into a cave, but there is no way down with a pushchair and the steps can be damp. And if you are in town in August, this is the coolest spot in the entire bazaar.
A carved-stone prayer hall with spring water still running under the floor since around 1282, back in use for prayer since 2017.
A double-chambered pool, washing rooms and a wool-laundering corner show how bath, prayer room and neighbourhood utility were one and the same.
The oldest of Gaziantep's six surviving kastels, on UNESCO's Tentative List with the livas channels since 2018.
Suyabatmaz Mahallesi, corner of Pişirici and Müftüoğlu streets, opposite Ağa Mosque, Şahinbey
Pişirici is the easy answer: the oldest of the six survivors, restored, free, and right in the old bazaar near the Tekke Mosque. Şeyh Fethullah and İmam-ı Gazali are worth a look if you happen to pass them, but they add little after Pişirici, and there is no need for a tour chasing all six.
Children love it because it is like climbing down into a cool cave. Older visitors or anyone who struggles with stairs should know the only way in is thirty to forty stone steps that can be damp, and a pushchair stays at the top. The visit is short, and if the descent is not possible the street-level entrance is not worth a stop on its own.