Amasya stands in the narrow valley of the Yeşilırmak, in a belt close to the North Anatolian Fault. The setting gave the city a natural defence and a fertile plain, and in return it brought centuries of recurring tremors. The greatest of them struck on 17 August 1668, in the month of Rebiülevvel of the Hijri year 1079. The earthquake ruptured a stretch of fault several hundred kilometres long in northern Anatolia, caused damage over a wide area from Bolu to Erzincan, and in Amasya brought down the domes, walls and market buildings that defined the city. The chronicle compiled from the city's records by the Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar makes it possible to follow, day by day, how that time was lived in Amasya, who died, by whose hands the ruins were cleared, and what changes the disaster brought to the city's administration.

Amasya and the Earthquake Belt

The Anatolian Plate is pushed westward relative to the Eurasian Plate by the pressure of the Arabian Plate, which continues to move northward. Most of this motion is taken up by the North Anatolian Fault, some 1,500 kilometres long, running from the Karlıova Triple Junction in the east to the Aegean Sea in the west. The fault is not a single break; it is made up of many segments joined together, and these segments tend to rupture in earthquake sequences that migrate westward and can last for decades. The region in which Amasya lies is in the central part of the fault.

According to information compiled by the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the city, being one of the oldest settlements in Anatolia, bears the record of many earthquakes. Their destructive effects can be seen in Amasya Castle and above all in monuments of the Seljuk and Ottoman periods, which carry large repairs from different eras laid one over another. The first destructive earthquake mentioned in historical records is dated to AD 236 and another to AD 509, but very little information about the damage they caused has survived. The first earthquake to give detailed information about the region dates from 1579 and was recorded in the Mühimme registers (registers of imperial orders); it affected Çorum in particular, and in Amasya it damaged the Hızır Paşa Mosque, its imaret (public kitchen) and its madrasa. According to Ambraseys and Finkel's catalogue covering the years 1500-1800, after this Çorum-Amasya earthquake the people asked the state to remit their taxes. In the earthquakes of 1647-1648 the Hacı Hamza Mescid, the Fethiye Mosque and the Hilafet Gazi Madrasa were damaged.

Hüsameddin's work adds details to this list drawn from the city's own memory. He relates that after the earthquake of 818 AH (1415-16) the people lived in tents for some three months, that gardens, vineyards and fields dried up, and that famine and poverty then settled over the region. He also records that Amasya Castle was repaired after this earthquake by Murad II. He describes the earthquake of 999 AH at greater length: because of tremors that went on for about ten days in and around Amasya, the people went out into the open squares and stayed in tents for two months. The persistence of the shocks spread a rumour that the Day of Judgement would come in the year 1000 AH; a general fear fell upon everyone, and some, seizing the opportunity, deceived the simple-minded and made fortunes. In this atmosphere the prices of gold and silver rose, profiteering increased, and a decree fixing prices was sent from Istanbul. The records of how the 1668 earthquake unfolded in Amasya repeat many of the scenes seen in these earlier disasters.

Ambraseys and Finkel's catalogue gathers 377 earthquake records for Turkey and its surroundings between 1500 and 1800, six of which concern Amasya. Because catalogues treat earthquakes on a regional scale, they rarely go into detail about what a single city went through; among the sources examined, the text that describes the effect of the 1668 earthquake on Amasya most fully is Hüsameddin's chronicle.

The Earthquake of 17 August 1668

According to the historical earthquake catalogue of the Kandilli Observatory, the epicentre of the 1668 earthquake lay on the southern shore of Lake Ladik. Its estimated magnitude ranges between 7.8 and 8.0 on the surface-wave scale, and its maximum intensity is given as IX on the Mercalli scale. The lower bound of the magnitude rests on the extent of the area affected by shaking of intensity VI, the upper bound on the interpreted length of the rupture. Values ranging from 380 to 600 kilometres have been proposed for the rupture length. Study of the historical records shows that a series of foreshocks occurred at the western end of the rupture zone before the main shock. The earthquake is described as the most powerful in Turkey's recorded history.

The day and hour of the earthquake are given differently in the sources. Some state that it struck towards dawn, while others place it towards noon, in the late morning, citing a manuscript in the Samsun Provincial Public Library. Hüsameddin's chronicle offers a local testimony on this point: the earthquake struck on the eighth day of Rebiülevvel in the Hijri year 1079, a Friday, at "kaba kuşluk vakti", that is, a few hours after sunrise, in the middle of the morning. This phrase supports the account that places the shock in the late morning. There is also a small discrepancy over the date. The Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism gives it as 16 August 1668, while most studies based on the Kandilli data use 17 August. Converted with Hijri calendar tables, 8 Rebiülevvel 1079 falls on Thursday, 16 August 1668; yet Hüsameddin states plainly that the day was a Friday, and in 1668 Friday was 17 August. Since fixing the start of the month by the sighting of the new moon makes one-day shifts common in Hijri dates, it is very likely that the difference between the two dates arises from this calculation; this, however, is an inference. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (TDV) refers to the same event as the earthquake of 1079 AH (1668-69). The widely accepted date of 17 August is followed here.

Traces of the Rupture and the Debate

The basic work in the scientific assessment of the earthquake is the article by Nicholas Ambraseys and Caroline Finkel published in 1988 under the title "The Anatolian Earthquake of 17 August 1668". Working from the distribution of damage, the authors argued that the rupture was more than 400 kilometres long and may have extended from east of İsmetpaşa and Gerede in the west to Koyulhisar in the east. Not every catalogue shares this view, however. The catalogue of Ergin and colleagues and the historical earthquake catalogue of Soysal and colleagues speak, instead of a single very large earthquake, of a series of shocks occurring at different places between July and September 1668. Because of this uncertainty in the historical information, the true length of the rupture can only be deduced from the trenches that earth scientists have dug across the fault.

The surface trace of the earthquake has therefore been investigated through trenches opened centuries later. The study by Cengiz Zabcı and colleagues, published in 2011 in the Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences, found evidence in trenches dug at Reşadiye and Umurca on the Kelkit Valley segment for three earthquakes that ruptured the surface before 1939, and linked them to the events of 17 August 1668, 1254 and 1045. In the Umurca trench, the event preceding 1939 was found to have occurred just after a charcoal sample dated to 1625-1644; this range is consistent with the 1668 earthquake. According to the researchers, the 1668 rupture jumped the releasing stepover about 10 kilometres wide at Niksar and continued eastward to near Koyulhisar. Further east, another trench study at Çukurçimen, 35 kilometres east of Gölova, found no trace of the 1668 earthquake; this result suggests that the eastern end of the rupture lay between these two points. The same study argues that on the Kelkit Valley segment the earthquakes of 1939, 1668 and 1254 produced horizontal offsets of about 4, 2.5 and 4 metres respectively. Displacements of 4, 6.5 and 10.8 metres measured on field boundaries were interpreted as the cumulative effect of these successive earthquakes. The Niksar stepover had acted in the twentieth century as a seismic barrier separating the 1939 Erzincan and 1942 Erbaa-Niksar earthquakes.

Whether the rupture formed in a single event or in several separate ones is therefore a matter of debate. The hypothesis of a single 600-kilometre rupture requires the 10-kilometre stepover at Niksar to have been jumped; dynamic rupture models showing that in most earthquakes a jump of at most about five kilometres is possible made this difficult. On the other hand, the 2001 Kunlun earthquake clearly showed a much wider stepover being crossed, and more recent numerical studies have suggested that in mature fault systems a rupture can jump eight kilometres or more.

General Damage in the Region

The effects of the earthquake were felt along a belt stretching from Bolu in the west to Erzincan in the east, and it is estimated to have caused about 8,000 deaths. The town of Bolu is said to have been almost completely destroyed, with 1,800 dead. In the eastern part of the fault, between Merzifon and Niksar, another 6,000 deaths were recorded. There was damage on the Black Sea coast as well: the walls and towers of Samsun Castle were damaged and parts of the structure collapsed. In Tokat the main shock was followed by aftershocks that lasted at least six months. These figures derive from the accounts in Ambraseys's study of the earthquakes of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and are historical estimates rather than an exact count.

The 1668 earthquake is considered the probable first link in a sequence that migrated westward and reached into the nineteenth century, including the earthquakes of 1719, 1754, 1766, 1859 and 1894. In the twentieth century the same belt of the fault became active again in a new sequence that began with the 1939 Erzincan earthquake and ended, with the 17 August 1999 İzmit earthquake, in the rupture of the whole fault. Trench studies on the fault segments that ruptured separately in 1942, 1943 and 1944 have also found traces of the 1668 rupture; this shows that the belt which broke in three separate earthquakes in the twentieth century also moved in 1668.

The Days of the Earthquake in Amasya

According to Hüsameddin's account, the year 1079 had begun for Amasya with an ordinary change of administration. At the beginning of Muharrem the governor of Amasya, es-Seyyid Mehmed Paşa, known by the nickname "Deli Emir", was promoted to the governorship-general of Shahrizor, and the sanjak was given to el-Hac Mehmed Paşa, known as "Sarı Mehmed Paşa". The pasha became governor on the fifth of Muharrem and appointed Geygellili Hasan Ağa, the kethüdayeri of Amasya and one of the leading sipahis, as his deputy (mütesellim). On the first day of Rebiülevvel, Mehmed Efendi was made judge (kadı) of Amasya. The earthquake came only a week after this new administration took office.

The chronicle describes the shock in and around Amasya as "a terrible and continuous earthquake". The ground split open, fearful sounds were heard, and the people fled to the squares and open spaces. The walls of the castle, the domes of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, the castle's square gate, masonry houses, the domes of most of the mosques and many parts of the bedesten collapsed. A great many houses fell down. Because the tremors continued at intervals for days, the people stayed in tents pitched in the squares, and "a good many people" lost their lives. Hüsameddin gives no death toll; no exact figure for the number of houses destroyed or people killed in Amasya is found in any of the sources examined.

The aftershocks that continued for days after the main shock kept people from returning to their houses; for a time they were forced to live in tents and in the open. The picture closely resembles what Hüsameddin relates of the earthquakes of 818 and 999. Tall, heavy elements such as domes and minarets are the parts of stone and brick buildings most vulnerable to horizontal shaking, and most of the losses the sources list are of this kind. The Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism also reports that, according to assessments of the affected area, the fault between Niksar and Bolu ruptured completely in this earthquake, and that in Amasya the domes and minarets of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, the walls of Amasya Castle, masonry buildings, the domes of most mosques and many parts of the Bedesten collapsed. This list matches the order in Hüsameddin's chronicle almost exactly; the directorate's information is probably based, in the end, on the same local record.

City Administration after the Disaster

The earthquake's effect on the order of the city was soon apparent. According to Hüsameddin, on the tenth day of Rebiülevvel, two days after the shock, the city steward (şehir kethüdası) el-Hac Mehmed Ağa was dismissed for his negligent conduct and replaced by Hamza Ağa, son of Musa, warden (dizdar) of the Upper Castle. The reason was that certain base people had tried to profit from the earthquake and had harmed many; incidents and complaints had multiplied. The chronicle does not describe in detail exactly what these people did. The same thing had happened in the earthquake of 999, when there were also those who made fortunes by exploiting rumours of the Day of Judgement.

The complaints reached the judge as well. Kadı Mehmed Efendi, who had taken office at the start of Rebiülevvel, was dismissed, and on the first day of Şevval, in early March 1669, Abdülbaki Efendi became judge of Amasya. On the seventh of the same month İbrahim Ağa of Merzifon was appointed administrator (mütevelli) of the Sultan Bayezid endowments. This appointment was decisive for the repair of the complex. İbrahim Ağa was no stranger to the city: according to Hüsameddin, this man, known by the nickname "Kara Deniz", had become deputy governor of Amasya at the beginning of 1068 (1657), and in Rebiülevvel 1070 (November 1659) he had once before served as administrator of the Sultan Bayezid endowments. Placing at the head of the great ruined complex an administrator who already knew the city and the endowment helps to explain why the repair moved so quickly; there is, however, no record stating that the appointment was made specifically for the repair.

One of the earthquake's victims in the city is known by name. Hafız Çelebi, chief muezzin of the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, who had won the people's affection with his fine voice and his poetry, died as a result of the earthquake of 1079. Hüsameddin introduces him as the son of the muezzin Mustafa Çelebi; he writes that he was formed in the gatherings of Hacezade Abdullah Remzi Efendi, one of the poets and scholars of the age, that he was a man of letters, a poet and a musician, and that his pupil Bülbül Hafız also became famous. The chronicle, for its part, records that at the end of the same year the poet and musician Hafız Mehmed Çelebi, "who charmed the people with his sweet voice", died and was succeeded by his pupil Bülbül Ahmed Çelebi; a footnote adds that his teacher was the mosque's chief muezzin Hacı Mustafa Medhi Çelebi. Given the same mosque, the same profession and the same pupil nicknamed "Bülbül", it is very likely that these two men, named Abdullah in the biography and Mehmed in the chronicle, were one and the same person; but since the difference in name cannot be resolved, this remains an inference.

The Sultan Bayezid Complex

The most detailed record of the earthquake in Amasya concerns the complex of Sultan Bayezid II on the bank of the Yeşilırmak. The complex is a large group of buildings comprising a mosque, a madrasa, a kitchen and imaret, a tabhane (hospice for travellers) and a primary school. According to the mosque's inscription it was completed in July 1486; Hüseyin Hüsameddin Bey reports that construction began in 1481, immediately after Bayezid's accession, and that the work was entrusted to Prince Ahmed (Şehzade Ahmed). The endowment deed of the complex is dated January 1496.

According to the information the Encyclopaedia of Islam (TDV) gives on the authority of Hüsameddin Bey, the complex suffered major damage twice in the earthquakes of Amasya. The first was the earthquake of 999. In it the front domes and arches of the mosque and the domes of the imaret partly collapsed and were repaired at once. The date of this first earthquake appears in the sources as November 1590 or as 1591. The source of the discrepancy can be seen in Hüsameddin's own work: in the section describing the mosque he places the earthquake in Muharrem of 999 (October-November 1590), while in the chronicle he writes that it occurred in Zilkade of the same year (August-September 1591), noting in a footnote that some histories put it in Muharrem. The second and greater damage came in the earthquake of 1079 (1668-69). The domes fell, the minarets on either side of the mosque leaned, and the domes of the imaret and the tabhane collapsed. Its administrator, İbrahim Ağa of Merzifon, made good all the damage within a year.

The section in which Hüsameddin gives the history of the mosque describes the damage in greater detail. According to him, in the "dreadful earthquake" of 1079 the inner arch of the mosque collapsed, its domes fell, the right-hand minaret toppled from its lower band towards the qibla, the left-hand minaret leaned towards the east, and the domes of the imaret and the tabhane split. The repair was carried out under the supervision (nazırlık) of the administrator İbrahim Ağa of Merzifon, with Ahmed Paşazade Ali Bey taking part as mübaşir, the official who ran the work on site; damage on so great a scale, and the minarets, were rebuilt within a year. A small contradiction stands out here: the chronicle states that the right-hand minaret fell towards the north and the left-hand one leaned towards the qibla. Since in Amasya the qibla lies to the south-southeast, the two accounts do not agree. No document has been found to show which is correct; but both accounts agree that one minaret largely collapsed and the other leaned so far as to become unusable.

That a single endowment administrator could repair the mosque, minarets, imaret and tabhane in so short a time suggests that the complex had a functioning administration as an endowment institution and revenues set aside for maintenance. Since İbrahim Ağa's appointment in Şevval 1079 corresponds to March 1669, it follows that the main burden of the repair was carried during 1669. The sources do not, however, provide a detailed survey of the damage, the materials used or the expenditure, so it cannot be said for certain how thorough the repair was, or whether the domes were rebuilt in their old form or altered. Hüsameddin adds that after this great repair the light damage caused by recurring earthquakes was promptly made good, and that the imaret was well preserved down to his own day.

The madrasa, together with the other buildings of the complex, was also badly damaged in the earthquakes of 1591 and 1668-1669. This madrasa, west of the mosque, had been founded in 1486 as an eighteen-room building arranged in three wings on either side of the lecture hall to the south. A study examining the complex through an endowment document notes that the domes described in the document have reached the present day through repairs made after the earthquakes. The same study suggests that the arches at the northern end of the madrasa porticoes may once have rested on engaged columns, and that these columns may have been removed, or the façade altered, in one of the repairs made after the earthquakes of 1591, 1668-1669 or 1939. This is a possibility suggesting that the 1668 repair may not only have restored what had fallen but also changed certain details; the document, however, does not settle the matter.

The complex did not escape later shocks either. In the violent earthquake of 1939, which caused great destruction in Amasya, the Bayezid Mosque was damaged again and some of the arches and domes of its last-comers' portico collapsed; the 1943 earthquake also did great damage to the domes. A large part of the madrasa fell in these earthquakes, and between 1952 and 1971 it was restored by the General Directorate of Foundations and brought into use as a library. The mosque's repair in the 1960s, however, is not considered successful by the Encyclopaedia of Islam (TDV). The complex seen today is the result of repairs laid one upon another after the earthquakes of 1590-91, 1668 and the twentieth century.

The Castle and the Square Gate

The walls of Amasya Castle are among the parts mentioned as destroyed in 1668. The castle rises on the steep Harşena rock above the city and has been repaired and altered in many periods; the effects of earthquakes can be traced especially in the castle and in the monuments of the Seljuk and Ottoman periods. When Hüsameddin lists the castle's repairs, he uses earthquakes almost as turning points. According to him the castle was repaired by the Danishmendid Melik Ahmed Gazi, by the Seljuk Sultan Mesud around 540 (1145-46) and by Alaeddin Keykubad around 618 (1221-22); after it was badly damaged in the earthquake of 718 it was restored by Gümüşlüzade Taceddin Mahmud Çelebi, around 768 by Şemseddin Şadgeldi Paşa, after the earthquake of 818 by Murad II, and in 918 by Mustafa Bey, one of the commanders of Prince Ahmed.

Damaged again by the earthquake in 1079, the castle was repaired through the efforts of Hoca Ahmed Paşazade Ali Bey and Silahdarzade Yusuf Ağa of Hakala. The appearance of the name Ahmed Paşazade Ali Bey as mübaşir in the repair of the Sultan Bayezid Complex as well suggests that the same man ran the work on the city's two great structures together after the earthquake; Hüsameddin does not make this connection explicitly. The castle's lower tower facing the city was the residence of the wardens and guards of the castle, and this arrangement lasted until 1255 (1839-40).

The later fate of the "square gate", which the chronicle says was destroyed in the earthquake, can also be traced. Among the events of 1086 (1675-76), Hüsameddin records that the square gate of the Inner Castle, "destroyed in the great earthquake that occurred in Şevval", was completed through the efforts of the overseer Nasuh Ağazade Hamza Ağa, covering an area ten cubits wide and eighty long, for thirty kuruş, and he signals his surprise at the smallness of the sum with a mark in parentheses. Which earthquake the "great earthquake" of the entry refers to is not stated. Considering that the chronicle records no other earthquake between 1079 and 1086, and that the square gate is specifically listed among the things destroyed in the 1079 earthquake, one may conclude that the gate fell in 1668 and was completed only seven years later; this, however, is an inference.

The Bedesten and the Market

The bedesten is the masonry, domed part of the market where valuable goods were stored; in 1668 many parts of this building collapsed. Both Hüsameddin's chronicle and the information reported by the provincial culture directorate say that "many parts" of the bedesten fell, but they do not state which domes collapsed or when and by whom the repair was carried out. No detailed repair history for this building appears in the sources examined. For 1079 the records contain nothing about market life comparable to the price rises and profiteering described after the earthquake of 999.

Neighbourhood Mosques, Madrasas and Dervish Lodges

The section in which Hüsameddin describes the neighbourhoods one by one shows that, alongside the great monuments, the earthquake also ruined small endowed buildings on the scale of the neighbourhood. In the Kuba quarter below the Köşk Kayası, the mosque and madrasa built in 857 (1453) by the Halveti sheikh Hüsameddin Hüseyin had fallen into ruin in 1079. The deputy governor of Amasya, Kubalı Abdi Bey, rebuilt the mosque in 1080 (1669-70); his son Mehmed Paşa repaired the madrasa in 1105 (1693-94) and added a school beside it. That twenty-five years passed before the madrasa was working again shows that repairs after the earthquake did not proceed at the same pace for every building.

In the Kamereddin quarter north of the Meydan Bridge, the mescid and bath of Emir İmadeddin Süli Bey were likewise ruined in 1079 and renewed by the deputy governor of Amasya, el-Hac Ali Ağa. When these buildings burned in 1143 (1730-31) they would be repaired this time by Sancızade el-Hac Hasan Ağa, one of the city's notables. The Kağnı Tekkesi, a Qadiri dervish lodge in the Devehane quarter, was rebuilt in 1079 by its administrator Aydın Paşazade Ali Bey. Hüsameddin does not say explicitly that this last repair was connected with the earthquake; although the coincidence with the year of the earthquake suggests a link, it is no more than a possibility.

Another point that stands out in these records is that most of the repairs were carried out by deputy governors, endowment administrators and the city's leading families. No information about a repair order sent from the centre, a survey register or a grant from the treasury appears in the sources examined. Amasya's recovery after 1668 rested, as far as the records show, on endowment revenues and on the initiative of local officials.

Later Earthquakes

Later earthquakes indirectly show which of the city's buildings were still standing after 1668. In the earthquake of 14 October 1684 most masonry buildings were damaged, the Sultan Bayezid Mosque was damaged once more, and the effects were felt in Niksar as well; this means the complex was shaken again only sixteen years after 1668. Hüsameddin places this earthquake on the fourth day of Şevval in the year 1095; by the calendar tables this falls in mid-September 1684, about a month earlier than the October date given by the provincial culture directorate. According to the chronicle, the violent and continuous shaking damaged masonry buildings, many houses collapsed, new damage appeared in the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, and Kurdzade Ahmed Bey, administrator of the endowments of Sefer Paşa and Mehmed Paşa, died as a result of the earthquake.

In 1734 the Beyler Sarayı (Governors' Palace), which had been destroyed and rebuilt after earlier earthquakes, was damaged, and as far as the sources report it was never repaired after this earthquake. The "dreadful, rumbling" earthquake that Hüsameddin dates to the twenty-seventh day of Cemaziyelevvel 1147, late October 1734, towards mid-afternoon, partly destroyed the Bey Mosque in the Upper Castle, the Dizdariye Madrasa, the minaret of the Ayas Ağa Mosque in the Şamlar quarter, the Hüseyin Ağa Madrasa, the Yakut Paşa bedesten, the Loğ Minaret, and most of the masonry houses and old buildings. A great piece of rock broke off the Upper Castle and rolled down into İçerişehir, crushing the houses and people in its path. In the earthquake of 29 October 1776, which affected Vezirköprü and Merzifon, the Ayşe Hatun Tomb, already in ruins according to the Islamic court registers, collapsed. The great earthquake of 18 July 1794 in the Çorum region also affected Amasya. The earthquake of 1240 (1824-25) mentioned by Hüsameddin likewise caused loss of life in the city.

Rebuilding and the Ground Beneath the City

The picture that emerges from all these records is of a city that, after the 1500s, faced large and destructive earthquakes again and again, carried out repairs afterwards, and remained where it was. The Directorate of Culture and Tourism also points out that there may have been earthquakes in antiquity that did relatively little damage and went unrecorded. It stresses that old Amasya was built on durable limestone while the modern city has spread over the alluvium of the Yeşilırmak, and states that even earthquakes that did no damage in the past would have far more destructive effects on alluvial ground if they recurred today. The same assessment applies to the districts of Taşova, Merzifon, Suluova, Gümüşhacıköy and Hamamözü.

The later additions around the complex show how a building that had been destroyed and repaired continued to function through the interest of benefactors. In 1197 (1782-83) a benefactor whom Hüsameddin names as Türedizade el-Hac Ali Ağa built taps and a water-heating room on the riverbank to the northeast of the mosque so that ablutions could be made with hot water in winter; Ayşe Hatun added a şadırvan (ablution fountain) in 1813, Hacı Osman Ağa a sebil (public fountain) in 1820-21, and Kapancızade Hacı Hüseyin Zeki Efendi a muvakkithane (timekeeper's room) and library and another şadırvan in 1840. These were not direct consequences of the 1668 earthquake. Nor were earthquakes the only threat to the complex: the floods of the Yeşilırmak also damaged the building from time to time, and in the 1980 flood a deposit 70 centimetres deep formed inside the mosque.

Chronology

AD 236 and 509: The first destructive earthquakes mentioned in historical records; very little is known about the damage they did in Amasya.

818 (1415-16): According to Hüsameddin, the people live in tents for three months; the castle is repaired.

1486: Completion date in the inscription of the Sultan Bayezid II Mosque.

1579: Earthquake recorded in the Mühimme registers; in Amasya the Hızır Paşa Mosque, imaret and madrasa are damaged.

999 (November 1590 or August-September 1591): The domes and arches of the Bayezid Complex partly collapse and are repaired at once; the people stay in tents for two months.

1647-1648: The Hacı Hamza Mescid, the Fethiye Mosque and the Hilafet Gazi Madrasa are damaged.

17 August 1668 (8 Rebiülevvel 1079, a Friday): A section of the North Anatolian Fault some 380-600 kilometres long ruptures; in Amasya the domes and minarets of the Bayezid Mosque, the castle walls and square gate, the domes of the mosques and many parts of the Bedesten collapse.

19 August 1668 (10 Rebiülevvel 1079): Because of those profiting from the earthquake, the city steward is dismissed and replaced by Hamza Ağa.

March 1669 (Şevval 1079): Abdülbaki Efendi becomes judge, and İbrahim Ağa of Merzifon administrator of the Sultan Bayezid endowments.

1668-1669: The damage to the complex is made good within a year by the administrator İbrahim Ağa of Merzifon; the castle is repaired.

1080 (1669-70): The mosque in the Kuba quarter is rebuilt by Kubalı Abdi Bey.

1086 (1675-76): The square gate of the Inner Castle, destroyed in the earthquake, is completed.

14 October 1684 (4 Şevval 1095 according to Hüsameddin): Renewed damage to masonry buildings and to the Bayezid Mosque.

1105 (1693-94): The Kuba Madrasa is repaired and a school added beside it.

1734: The Beyler Sarayı is damaged and never repaired; a rock breaking off the Upper Castle crushes houses in İçerişehir.

29 October 1776: In the earthquake affecting Vezirköprü and Merzifon, the Ayşe Hatun Tomb collapses.

18 July 1794: The great earthquake in the Çorum region also affects Amasya.

1939 and 1943: New damage to the complex; the madrasa is restored between 1952 and 1971.

Bibliography

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