Adilcevaz

The medieval town of Adilcevaz, under the Abbasid Caliphate and then the Seljuk Empire, was located on and around the steep hill by the lake.[8] Some fragments of the town walls from this period are still visible.[8] An inscription naming the 15th-century Qara Qoyunlu ruler Jahan Shah was made by the old city's west gate, but he is "unlikely to have contributed much to the walls" - they were probably built before the Seljuks and then renovated c. 1231-43 during Seljuk rule.[8] A small mosque from perhaps the 14th or 15th century is the only building that still stands in this area.[8] There was also a suburban area beyond the walls, mostly to the south - which is now underwater.[8] One inhabited area was apparently left isolated as rising water levels turned it into an island at some point.[8]

During the late middle ages, water levels rose again, and the suburban areas to the south were abandoned in favor of the flat land around the area where the Ottoman-era Ulu Cami was later built.[8] Probably by the late 16th century, when the Ottoman mosque was built, the southern island had also been submerged.[8] The old walled area was "no longer viable as a town center", although there were still some houses here.[8] Most likely, the nine-domed Ottoman mosque was built to reflect the town's shift rather than to encourage it; most of the suburbs had probably already relocated before its construction.[8] Another monument from about the same time is the now-mostly-ruined han in the nearby village of Kohoz (officially Yolçatı).[8] The han is locally attributed to Zal Paşa (d. 1580), who was sanjak-bey of Adilcevaz at the time of Süleyman I's campaign against the Safavids in 1548-9, but there is no other archaeological or textual evidence to validate this.[8]

In recent centuries, Adilcevaz has shifted again, this time from the old Ottoman town center to its present-day location 1 km further east.[8] An earthquake in the late 1800s caused flooding that destroyed many houses by the lake shore, which probably contributed to this second shift.[8] An account in 1879 noted that the small older mosque was no longer being used as a place of worship; it was then used for grain storage.[8] It has since been heavily restored.[8]

In 1979, T.A. Sinclair wrote that there were "only bad hotels in Adilcevaz".[8]

• The Armenian "monastery of the Miracles" at Adilcevaz