Damladere is one of the villages of Hamamözü, and beneath its present name lies an old settlement whose traces can be followed in Ottoman documents: until fairly recently the village bore the name Dankaza. The name appears in the mid-seventeenth century in the travel notes of Evliya Çelebi, and in the eighteenth century in complaints sent from the kaza of Gümüş to the council in Sivas. The subject of those complaints is the neglect of a mosque near the village and the irregular soldiers who raided it in 1752. According to the 2025 results, 145 people live in Damladere; in the municipality's list its muhtar (headman) appears as Ufuk Üzüm.

From Dankaza to Damladere

Bekir Başalan's study of Amasya's place names lists four settlements in Hamamözü whose names were changed, and gives Damladere's former name as Dankaza. Başalan notes that of these four only Kızılcaören was given a name that recalls the old form, while the others received new names unrelated to the old ones; there is no link of sound or meaning between Dankaza and Damladere either. The study does not say in which year the change was made. No explanation of the meaning or origin of the name Dankaza has been found.

Evliya Çelebi's Note

In the official history of Gümüşhacıköy, where the passages of travellers through the district are listed, a short extract from Evliya Çelebi is quoted under the heading 1647. Evliya writes that he crossed Direkli Bel and reached Hacıköyü, and that after staying three days in the kaza of Gümüş he set out "for Dankaza of 150 houses", reaching the village in five hours. The name is not known to have been used for any other settlement in Amasya, and the twenty-three kilometres between Hamamözü and Gümüşhacıköy match a five-hour journey. Even so, the passage has been read in a second-hand quotation and needs to be compared with the scholarly edition of the Seyahatname. If it is accurate, a hundred and fifty households would mean that the village then held several times its present population; no tax-register entry has been found against which this figure could be checked.

The Erkud Mosque and the Raid of 1752

In the first twelve Sivas Ahkâm-ı Şikâyet Defterleri (registers of complaints), covering the years 1742-1774, Buket Çelik identified 236 decrees concerning the kaza of Gümüş and set out the villages named in them as a list. Dankaza is on that list, among names such as Hacıköyü, Çepni, Keçiköy, Yemiş, Ovacık and Çetmi. Çelik also notes that the list covers only villages whose complaints reached the council, and so does not show all the villages of the kaza. In the same registers Hamamözü also appears as the name of a nahiye.

Both decrees in which Dankaza is named concern the same building. As Çelik reports, a mosque built by Beyler Çelebi stood in the kaza of Gümüş "at the place called Hamamözü in the vicinity of the village of Dankaza", and was known as the Erkud Mosque. Its preacher, molla, muezzin and caretaker drew their daily wages around 1742 from the revenue of the Ahi Sinan endowment, and in the 1750s from the Beyler Çelebi endowment. The decrees state that the congregation praying there numbered no more than four or five people. In 1752 irregular soldiers known as "kapusuz levendat" raided the village and left the mosque in ruins; the documents describe the building as so close to collapse that prayers could no longer be held in it. Çelik notes that she found no further decree concerning the endowment and suggests that it may have ceased to function in the following years.

This record matters for the district town as much as for Damladere. The founding of Hamamözü as a village is dated to 1887; yet the decrees show that the same name was in use a century and a half earlier for a place neighbouring Dankaza, and that a mosque serving a small congregation stood there. The sources do not say whether the Erkud Mosque still stands or where exactly it was.

Population

Among the villages of Hamamözü, Damladere is not one of those that have lost their population most heavily. The figure of 237 in 2007 falls to 210 in 2012 and 178 in 2016; it rises to 190 in 2018 and stays between 171 and 185 for the next five years. The sharp drop comes in the last year: from 176 in 2024 to 145 in 2025. In 2025, 69 men and 76 women were registered in the village.

Chronology

1647: A passage attributed to Evliya Çelebi in the history of Gümüşhacıköy mentions "Dankaza of 150 houses".

c. 1742: The staff of the Erkud Mosque near Dankaza receive their daily wages from the Ahi Sinan endowment.

1750s: The staff's wages are paid from the Beyler Çelebi endowment.

1752: Kapusuz levendat raid the village; the mosque falls into ruin.

2025: The village's population falls to 145.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources