Gümüşhacıköy lies in the far west of Amasya, in the middle of a broad plain set between the Taşan and İnegöl mountains. Its name comes from the union of two settlements, and one of them grew up at the head of a silver mine that has been worked since before Anatolia knew writing. The Seljuk mint, the bedesten of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and the clock tower that stands in the district centre today are all parts of a history that took shape around that same mine.

The story of the district is one on which the sources do not always agree. Building dates, population figures and surface-area measurements differ from one another even in official presentations, and some accounts rest more on local memory than on documents. For that reason conflicting dates have been set side by side, and legends are reported as legends.

One Name for Two Settlements

In Ottoman records the district appears as "Gümüş ma'a Hacıköy", that is, Gümüş together with Hacıköy. The present name arose from the gathering of these two separate settlements into a single administrative unit over time. Studies based on archival registers likewise note that the district was formed historically by the union of the towns of Gümüş and Hacıköy (Keçeci Kurt and Cevger, 2019).

Gümüş is the old town at the mine. It was founded on the eastern slope of Mount İnegöl, about two kilometres beyond Hacıköy, and silver veins are known to run around the mountain and across its summits. According to what is reported from Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi, the town was called Gümüş from the Hijri year 375 (985-986). Arab writers rendered the name as Kumus, Kumis, Fizza, Fidde or Fodda, and the town was also known as Mengirye, Gümüş Pazar and Kasaba-i Gümüş. When Ibn Battuta passed through in 1332, he speaks of the place as "Medinetü Gümüş". The Danişmendname also contains stories about how the town got its name, and the same account states that in 1075 Gümüş was called "Süleyman Ribâtı".

The name of Hacıköy, by contrast, comes from an official. According to the information passed down, Hacı Ahmed Çelebi began residing in Hacıköy from 1490-1491 as the nazır (superintendent) of the Gümüş mine, developed the place, treated the people well and died there. The village was first called "Hacı Nazır Köyü", among the people the name slid for a while into "Hacı Nadir Köyü", and at last it became Hacıköy. The tomb of Hacı Nazır Baba stands today in the Saray quarter. One account presents Hacı Ahmed Çelebi as a grandson of Sadreddin Artuk, who is mentioned below.

Hacıköy also had earlier names. According to the Amasya Tarihi, the place was first called "Kemari" after the Kimri (Gimri) Turks who settled in the region. Sadreddin Artuk et-Türkmânî el-Kaymârî, of the Kimri tribe, restored the settlement, which had been known by that name for more than three hundred years, around 1378-1379, and had a mosque and a school built there; from then on the place became widely known as "Artukabad". The word "Kemari" gradually turned into "Cemare" and lives on today as the name of the Cumara quarter; Artıkabat also survives as the name of another quarter. Another account frames the same event somewhat differently: the settlement that Sadreddin Artık restored in the late 14th century later took the names Artıkova and Artıkabat. It is also written that the first known inhabitants of the region were the Cimmerians and that the place was therefore once called "Kimmari", but this connection is disputed and does not rest on a document.

The name reached official correspondence late. "Gümüşhacıköy" first appears in the state yearbook (salname) as a kaza in 1885 (Hijri 1302). In the Sivas Provincial Yearbook the name appears only in 1903 (Hijri 1321); in the provincial yearbooks of 1885, 1887, 1889 and 1891 the unit is still listed as the "Maden-i Sim Kazası". According to the history published by the Culture and Tourism Directorate, until 1891 the district centre was a subdistrict (bucak) called "Hacıköyü", attached to Gümüş; it became a municipality in 1890 and the district seat in 1892. Another account says that the name was changed in the late 19th century to avoid confusion, because neighbouring Mecitözü was also called "Hacıköy". Years such as 1881, 1882-1883 and 1892 circulate in the sources; it would not be right to state the exact date without a document.

Travellers and cartographers recorded the settlement under various names. For Hacıköy, Cogionde was written in 1547, Ağıalar in 1632, AgiÇoi in 1647 and Ajamque in 1797; on maps the forms Hâcî (1530), Diacopene (1716) and Hadji Kuei or Hadji Köi (1867) appear. These spellings are a small variety showing how differently the name sounded to foreign ears. In 1930 it was proposed to the Vilayet-i Umumi Meclisi that the district be renamed "Gümüşeli"; the proposal came to nothing.

Early Settlements and Antiquity

Gümüş is counted among the oldest settlement areas in Anatolia. According to the official district presentation, in the Early Bronze Age Gümüş and its surroundings were a region where large workshops were concentrated; the finds made here offer important data for Anatolian mining and metallurgy. It has been established that the Gümüş mines were in use in the 3rd millennium BC and earlier, when Anatolia had no writing yet. Traces of intensive mining are seen at the localities of Karlık Tepe, Kale Tepe and Çadır Düzü, and the slag deposits in the town of Gümüş are read as remains of this long mining past.

On the Hacıköy side the picture is drawn more cautiously. Systematic surface surveys show that no settlement find from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic or Neolithic periods has been identified to date, while Hacıköy hosted settlement from the Chalcolithic period through Late Antiquity and beyond. A continuity is observed in the region throughout the Early, Middle and Late Bronze Ages; around 1190 BC, right after the fall of the Hittite Empire, settlement continued in the first phases of the Early Iron Age. Geography is decisive here: Early Bronze Age settlements were founded on plains suited to agriculture and near water, whereas from the Iron Age until the end of the Roman period, because of the need for protection, strategic and defensible sites such as hilltops and rock summits were chosen. The period table in the district presentations lists in turn the Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Cimmerians, Scythians, a short-lived Median rule, the Persians and the Hellenistic period; local interpretations drawing on the grave remains said to belong to a Scythian commander in the village of İmirler, and on village names (Alan and Kuzalan), are added to this line. This interpretation is disputed among historians and rests on opinion rather than documents.

With the founding of the Kingdom of Pontus, one of the two regions that made up the northern part of the territory of Amaseia was called Diakopene (Diakope). This region covers Gümüşhacıköy and its surroundings; its north-eastern half is taken to be Gümüş and its south-western half the valley of the Hamamözü Stream, and it is described as a "territorium", a fertile piece of land. In the first two centuries of the Roman imperial period, peaceful and prosperous members of the upper class who earned their living from farming are said to have lived here. Gümüşhacıköy was at that time a Roman town.

A further caution is needed for the Roman period. The Culture and Tourism Directorate, drawing on the work published in 1888 by the English archaeologist William Ramsay, writes that around AD 140 a city called "Etonia" was founded here, a centre linking Eukhaita (Çorum), Karissa (Alaca) and Amaseia on the route running east from Ankara, and "one of the favourite cities of Eastern Rome". Yet the expression "Eastern Rome" is out of place in the 2nd century, and the placing of Etonia at Gümüşhacıköy could not be confirmed in any other independent source. This information should be read as a legend. The period table in the district presentations also mentions, for the following centuries, Byzantium, a short-lived Umayyad hold, the battle fought against the Crusaders on the Merzifon Plain in 1101, the Babai revolts and Mongol (Ilkhanid) influence.

The Turkish Period and the Seljuk Mint

According to the district presentations, the Turkish period begins in 1075, when the Danishmendid Melik Ahmed Gazi, after taking Amasya, turned toward Gümüş by way of Hamamözü. After conquering Gümüş, Melik Ahmed Gazi passed through Hacıköy and reached Kastamonu by way of Vezirköprü, Durağan and Boyabat. Gümüş came first under the Danishmendids and then under the Anatolian Seljuk State. The Seljuks worked strategic mineral resources, which served both as a medium of exchange and, in the textile industry, as dyestuffs, to meet the needs of interregional trade; Gümüş is one of the few settlements with this value.

In the Seljuk period a mint operated here. It is written that in 1263 Kılıçarslan IV had silver coins struck at the Gümüş Mint. English-language encyclopaedic accounts add that in the 13th and 14th centuries both Seljuk and Ilkhanid coins were minted here, and that the town was then known as Gümüşbazar. In some accounts the town is said to have developed through the efforts of Eminüddin Yunus el-Kumsi, a Seljuk emir nicknamed "Emir Gümüşlü". The mint worked its way so deeply into the fabric of the town that its name was given to a quarter; the quarter where Armağan Çelebi lived, as long as he served as mine superintendent until 1356, was called "Armağan", and later, when mine workers, that is, labourers (ırgat), settled there, it took the name "Irgat Quarter". In the 15th century the town of Gümüş was a small settlement of three quarters, Cami-i Kebir, Darphane and Armağan (Irgat), with about three hundred households.

After the Seljuks the region changed hands often. The period table in the district presentations lists the Candaroğulları (1291), the Gimri Turks (1300), the Eretnids (1335), the Taşanoğulları (1353), Şadgeldi Pasha (1360) and Kadı Burhaneddin (1381). The Amasya Tarihi mentions, for the 15th century, a local lord called "Mirdat Oğlu Celaleddin Bey"; it is suggested that the Tavşan Mountains probably took their name from this lord. The same source also writes that Burhaneddin Ahmed Bey, brother of Gümüşlüzade Abdullah Çelebi, ruled the kaza as a petty lord, that Armağan Bey, who gave his name to a quarter in Gümüş, administered it in his name, and that the town was known in those years as Gümüş Pazarı.

Ottoman Rule and the Management of the Silver

The passage to Ottoman rule is also told together with silver. According to a statement in the official presentations, when the Anatolian beyliks moved against the Ottomans, Murad I began campaigns of conquest in 1386; after Osmancık, Gümüş and Amasya announced that they accepted Ottoman sovereignty, he sent his son Yıldırım Bayezid to the region. Prince Bayezid came to Amasya in 1386 and attached the Beylik of Amasya to the Ottoman State. The same account records that with Bayezid's appointment to the first sanjak governorship of the Rum Province, the "Çelebi Sultan" period began in Amasya, and that the centre of the Eyalet-i Rumiye-i Suğra, which also included Tokat and Sivas, was Amasya from the first half of the 15th century until 1520. The period table in the district presentations also gives other dates for Ottoman rule, such as 1393 and 1398; it is therefore not possible to give a single exact year for the region's passage to the Ottomans.

According to the account attributed to Evliya Çelebi, the people of Gümüş surrendered the fortress to Yıldırım Bayezid in 1386 with gifts of silver tableware. The same account states that the mine was farmed out for 100 akçe, that the tax farmer paid the state each year 70 kantars of pure silver and 1000 pairs of silver-trimmed horse blankets, that goldsmiths added ten dirhams of pure copper to every hundred dirhams of this pure silver before sending it to be stamped, and that the whole population of the town worked in the mine. These figures are the figures of Evliya Çelebi's account; they have not been confirmed by an archival document.

The data based on the archives are more concrete. Under Çelebi Mehmed, in 1403-1404, Kutlu Beyzade Halil Bey of Amasya was appointed mine superintendent (emin) of Gümüş. Halil Pasha, who became beylerbey in 1413-1414, had a stone madrasa built in 1415-1416 and established its endowment. In 1429-1430 Yörgüç Pasha had a large mosque built beside the madrasa. In 1452-1453 İskender Çelebi is reported to have held the post of mine superintendent. Gümüş had 16 quarters in the 1520 survey and 19 in the 1576 survey; the estimated population living in the town and villages rose from 3,589 by about 84 percent to 6,602. In 1520 1,883 people are recorded in the town and 1,706 in the villages, in 1576 3,807 in the town and 2,795 in the villages. For centuries the Gümüş mines were attached administratively to the province of Sivas and managed financially by the Darphâne-yi Amire (Imperial Mint); no special law code was issued for them, and they were administered within the framework of the existing mining laws.

After the second half of the 16th century the abundant silver arriving from America shook the Ottoman market. The pits with high production costs, and the mints attached to them, stood idle for a long time; during this period Gümüşhacıköy mining went through various difficulties. The district presentations also mention the Celali revolts of 1566 and the fact that after the affair of Prince Mustafa in 1553 Amasya was turned back into a sanjak and attached to Sivas. This detail also shows Gümüşhacıköy's indirect link with Amasya's princely tradition; the period table also records that in 1785 it was "within the borders of the Sanjak of the Princes".

Mining revived at the beginning of the 19th century. According to Songül Keçeci Kurt and Gürkan Cevger, who studied this period, from around 1760 the mines were among the mukataas handed over to the Mint because of the indebtedness of the mâlikâne system, and they were run by the emanet method, through superintendents. The emin was an official who managed the mine for a fixed fee but did not bear the risk of the enterprise; he obtained the money he needed from the mint or collected it from tax-farm payments. Superintendents were appointed directly on the report (takrir) of the Mint Director, with the grand vizier's summary and the sultan's hatt-ı hümayun, and most often served for only one year. In the documents of 1800-1801 Gümüşhacıköy is spoken of as a mine that was once again "opened and unlocked" (feth ve güşad). In a decision dated 11 July 1800 the population of nearby villages was attached to the mine in return for exemption from some taxes; on 6 January 1801, on the report of the Mint Director Ahmed Şakir, the administration of the mine was awarded by tender to a man named Ömer, and it was reported that new galleries had been opened and three new furnaces added. A document of 1802 shows that the Hacıköy mukataa carried a tax-farm fee of 17,750 and the Gümüş mukataa 3,151.5 kuruş. In the following years the documents give the names of superintendents such as Velibeyzade Seyyid Ahmed, one of the palace silahşörs (1804), Cabbarzade Süleyman (1806) and Osman (1807).

To raise the yield of the pits, skilled miners were brought from Gümüşhane and Kayseri and new pits were opened. The principal minerals extracted were silver and lead; in 1809 the silver-bearing gold-lead mixture exceeded about 41,000 dirhams. It is understood that the silver extracted was sent from time to time to Istanbul by way of the Samsun landing. The appointment, on 21 July 1842, of the engineer Edhem Bey, father of Osman Hamdi Bey, as director of the Gümüşhacıköy Maden-i Hümayun is another sign of the importance given to the mine. The Gümüş Mine Superintendency was abolished in 1892; the civil administration of Gümüş had been transferred to the Hacıköy district governors in 1888.

Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and the Rise of Hacıköy

For a time the Gümüş mine was given to Köprülü Mehmed Pasha as a hass arpalık, and the pasha was required to reside here. In Hacıköy the pasha had built a solid masonry caravanserai, a large mosque to the north of it, and beside it a bath known as the "duck bath" (ördekli hamam); adding the bedesten, he endowed all of these structures in 1660-1661 (Keçeci Kurt and Cevger, 2019). With this complex Hacıköy ceased to be a village in the shadow of the mine and turned into a trading town. One district presentation gives the date 1684 for Köprülü Mehmed Pasha's making Hacıköy a town; but considering that Köprülü Mehmed Pasha died in 1661, this date points either to another Köprülü or to a scribal error.

The Köprülü family's trace continues afterward. Abdülbaki Bey, son of Hafız Ahmed Pasha, one of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha's grandsons, was appointed in 1756-1757 as mine superintendent and guarantor of Gümüş; he renewed the mosque and had new buildings built, the bath foremost among them. Thanks to the sum of these buildings Hacıköy developed, and in the end Gümüş too became a subdistrict centre made up of eight quarters named Cemare, Artukabad, Saray, Hacı Yahya, Adatepe, Beylikçayırı, Ermeni Kilisesi and Çay. Until 1863 the notables of Hacıköy and the subdistrict directors laboured for the town's development, around 1876 a broad programme of beautification and improvement was begun, and in 1881 Hacıköy became the kaza centre. Gümüş meanwhile turned into a subdistrict centre.

Travellers also stopped at the town. In 1632 Tavernier speaks of "a largish town with two caravanserais". In 1647 Boullaye le Gouz saw two mosques in Hacıköy, which was evidently "once a great centre of settlement". For Evliya Çelebi this was "a place that should be made very prosperous, and there is not its like." In the 19th century the traveller Rottiers writes that Hacıköy was a place of 400 households, governed by an administrator appointed directly by the sultan, and that silver and lead pits were found there.

A decision that entered the documents in 1868 concerns the market directly. Since the kaza of Gümüş had no regular market, miners and the people had to go to the markets of other places for their needs. On this the establishment in the kaza of a new market every week on Wednesday was requested (an Ottoman archive document, cited from Erdoğru's compilation).

On the Road to Becoming a Kaza

The administrative history is somewhat winding. In the census of 1831 Gümüş Madeni is a kaza centre attached to the Sanjak of Amasya; in this first regular census only men were entered, and Gümüş was recorded with 1,395 and Hacıköy with 3,218 people. When the sanjaks of Amasya and Çorum were merged in 1847, Hacıköy and "Gümüş ma'a Kabakoz" appear as kazas until 1856. According to the provincial regulation of 1864, the district consisted of 6 subdistricts and 80 villages together with the kazas of Merzifon, Vezirköprü, Osmancık, Havza and Mecitözü attached to the Province of Sivas. In 1871 the "Maden-i Sim" kaza was added to the Sanjak of Amasya. In 1882-1883 the centre of this kaza was moved to Hacıköy and a new kaza arose under the name Gümüşhacıköy. On 30 July 1899 it was requested that the kaza centre be moved back to Gümüş, but in 1909 the Gümüş Madeni Town was made a subdistrict and attached to Gümüşhacıköy. Sources of the same period name the subdistricts as Gümüşmadeni, Saraycık and Hamamözü.

In 1865, under Abdülaziz, the subdistricts attached to Gümüşhacıköy are written as Eslemez, Sallar, Saraycık and Kağnıcı. In the 16th century, by contrast, the subdistrict of Kabakoz (Kabaoğuz), although attached to Vezirköprü (Gedegera) in the administrative division, had been placed under the orders of the Gümüş mine superintendency. In 1520 Gümüşhacıköy lies within Gaziler Ovacığı in the administrative division of the Sanjak of Amasya. This name covers part of Amasya and Suluova and the plain of Merzifon and Gümüşhacıköy; the plain is ringed by mountains, and it is believed that the soldiers of Battal Gazi lie in this region.

In the early years of the Republic the district consisted of three subdistricts centred on Gümüş, Saraycık and Hamamözü, with 56 villages. The district's first administrative board consisted of District Governor İbrahim Rüştü Bey, Finance Director Hasan Sabri Bey, Mufti Saib Efendi, Court of First Instance Judge Bilâl Bey and Public Prosecutor Ali Ömer Bey. In 1928-1929 the primary education inspector Remzi Bey, who was in the district, reports that there were 1,252 households in the district centre and that the number of non-Muslims was 306. Hamamözü separated in 1990 and became a district of its own. The municipal legal personality of the town of Gümüş ended on 29 March 2009.

Wars, the Exchange and a Multi-Faith Past

The Balkan Wars and the First World War wore down the district's population heavily. Losses counted in the thousands were suffered in the wars; what remained were veterans, women and children. District sources relate that in the armistice years the British advanced as far as Merzifon, and that when they came to Gümüşhacıköy and tried to raise a flag over the government house, they were driven off with stones and sticks by the women, children and disabled veterans who had been left behind. This account is local in origin and has not been confirmed by an independent document.

The town has a multi-faith, multilingual past. According to the French researcher Vital Cuinet, around 1890 Armenian Gregorians and Protestants lived in Hacıköy alongside the Muslims, and Greek Orthodox in Gümüş. According to the Ottoman census completed in 1893 the district's population is 25,146: 20,247 Muslims, 2,149 Greeks, 2,600 Armenians and 150 Protestants. In 1914, the Ottoman Empire's last census, the total population reaches 32,339; the same source also records that in 1915 there was an Armenian population of 4,500 in 650 households. In 1927, the first census of the Republic, the district's population is 26,264. In the exchange of 1923-1924, 1,199 people in 278 households were settled in Gümüşhacıköy; these exchangees suffered from a shortage of land and goods.

One of the buildings left by the Greeks is the Kızlar Monastery in Gümüş. It is written that it was built between 1840 and 1860 by Greeks who had come to work in the mine, and that it fell into neglect when the Greeks left in 1925. Some sources say that hunting parties for the kings of Pontus were held here; this is a legend, and there is no document. Another building, the Maden Bath, is also connected with Greek craftsmen, and it is told that it was built in 1820.

Places to Visit

The district's historic buildings are spread over two centres: the district centre at Hacıköy and the town of Gümüş. The dates of the buildings given in the official presentations often vary from source to source; below, these differences are given side by side without being hidden.

The Bedesten

According to the Amasya Culture and Tourism Directorate, the bedesten runs in an east-west direction and was built by Köprülü Mehmed Pasha in 1660. It has two entrances with large crown portals, and above the doors are pointed arches. Inside there are shops on both sides and an open-topped passage in the middle. The walls are of cut stone. In the district governorate's presentation the building is described as a structure made up of barrel-vaulted shops, with buttresses and mouldings; the red-and-white arch work at the entrance doors is also counted as a detail that adds colour. In another account the building is planned as a caravanserai, a masonry structure with four doors, measuring 82 x 9 metres and dated 1669; in later years it was used as a bedesten and repaired accordingly. This difference between 1660-1661 and 1669 remains unresolved in the sources.

Halil İnalcık sums up what it means to be a city with a bedesten as follows: "As a rule, a city with a bedesten is an international trading centre." The district presentations write that for centuries the bedesten was the place where merchants from India, Iran and Europe met and lodged, and that right after the conquest it was founded to provide a safe and high-volume trading environment for the city on the Anatolia-Rumelia trade route. This statement is written in promotional language; no documented trade figure is given.

The Clock Tower

The tower stands on the east side of the bedesten, above the arch. It is written that it was built by Ali Rıza Bey, son of Yanyalı Mustafa Pasha; the year of construction is given in the source as 1898 or 1900, and a document showing that a tower existed in 1899 is also cited. According to the official account, the original tower, erected in 1900, was destroyed in the earthquake of 1943, a wooden tower was built on the same spot in 1948, in 1971 that tower was pulled down during road works and a new one erected, and when that too collapsed the present tower was built in 2009. Another account says it was demolished and rebuilt in 1948; the Culture and Tourism Directorate, for its part, mentions an earthquake in 1939 and states that in 1971 local support raised the tower again. So the chronological order does not quite settle in the sources.

The Köprülü Mehmed Pasha Mosque

The mosque was built by Köprülü Mehmed Pasha in 1660 and constructed of masonry. Abdülbaki Bey later enlarged and repaired it. The minaret and dome sections were destroyed in the earthquake of 1943, a prayer ground (namazgâh) was added to the site after the earthquake, and the whole mosque was pulled down and the present building rebuilt in 1948.

The Great Bath

It is written that the Great Bath beside the Tomb of Hacı Nadir Baba was built by Abdülbaki Bey in 1756. The bath in Köprülü's complex, on the other hand, is called the "duck bath". Which bath is which has not become clear in the sources read.

The Tomb of Hacı Nazır Baba

The tomb is in the Saray quarter. It has a square plan, its front facade is of brick with an arch and an iwan; the other facades are of rubble stone. The entrance is plastered, and an inscription lies above the door. Inside there are two wooden sarcophagi. The kalem işi (painted) decoration on the entrance facade is striking. In the inventory of the Turkish Culture Portal the building is registered under the name Tomb of Hacı Nadir Baba.

Buildings in Gümüş

Haliliye Madrasa. It was built by the beylerbey Halil Pasha; Halil Pasha had earlier served here as superintendent of the silver mine and became beylerbey in 1413. The date of construction is given as 1415 on the Culture Portal and as 1413 in the district presentation. The madrasa has a rectangular plan and is built of rubble stone; the gaps between the wall stones were filled in recent repairs. At first it had a closed courtyard and a dome, but the dome collapsed and the courtyard was left open with arcades of wooden columns. The entrance is on the south facade, and the construction inscription is here. On entering one sees a rectangular courtyard surrounded by arcades with wooden columns, pointed arches and flat ceilings; behind the arcades rooms and classrooms are lined up, the iwan rooms in the middle are larger than the others, and above their doors there are again inscriptions. Each room opens to the outside with a small window. For many years the madrasa was used as the dervish lodge of İbrahim Hakkı Hazretleri, known as Garip Hafız, who was buried here.

The Yörgüç Pasha (Yörgüç Rüstem Pasha) Mosque. The year of construction is given as 1429; it was repaired in 1945 and restored again after being damaged in the earthquake of 1996. Another account writes that the mosque was built of wood in 1429, rebuilt in masonry in 1560 and repaired in 1946. It is reported that Hüseyin Hüsameddin gives the date Hijri 833 (1429-1430). The master of its minaret is Nazari Usta.

The Mint Mosque. It is written that the Seljuk and Ottoman mints were here and that the building was later used as a mosque.

The Maden Bath. It is in the Çay quarter; it is written that it was built by the Greeks in 1820, by Nazari Usta, that it has kept its original state and still serves today.

The Maden Mosque. An English-language source mentions the mosque as a building converted from a church.

The Kızlar Monastery. As narrated above, it is a building dated 1840, in an abandoned condition.

A note is needed for those planning a visit. Opening hours, fees and repair status change over time. The Culture Portal gives the distance to the Haliliye Madrasa as about 72 km from the city centre. Before going, it is best to ask the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism or the district governorate. The walking distance between the buildings is not given in any source.

Geography, Climate and Transport

The district lies in the interior of the Central Black Sea region, in the north-west of Amasya. Vezirköprü lies to its north, Merzifon to the east, Hamamözü to the south and Osmancık to the west. The district centre, on the state highway linking the Central and Eastern Black Sea to Istanbul, is about 68-70 km from Amasya, 18 km from Merzifon, 23 km from Hamamözü and 35 km from Osmancık. There is also a link from the north to Samsun's Vezirköprü district by a plateau road, given in one source as 40 km.

Measurements vary from source to source. The surface area is given as 629 km2 in one account, 653 km2 by the Culture and Tourism Directorate, and 696.07 km2 in the official district presentations. The altitude is 810 or 819 metres. The cause of these differences is that the method and date of measurement differ; the figures have therefore been reported together with their sources. As for land distribution, of the total of 696,067 decares, 40.72 percent is forest and scrub, 33.11 percent is agricultural land and 23.38 percent is meadow, pasture, summer pasture and threshing ground; settlement area remains at 1.13 percent.

The district centre lies in the middle of the broad plain between the Taşan and İnegöl mountains. The Taşan Mountains extend to the north as a branch of the Canik Mountains. The highest point is Mount İnegöl at 1,864 metres; another source gives 1,873. The Gümüş Stream, rising in the İnegöl Mountains, joins small streams and flows into the Tersakan Stream, a tributary of the Yeşilırmak. A stream rising on the west side of the İnegöl Mountains takes the name Akpınar Su in the direction of Hamamözü. The Karaköy and Pusacık streams descending from the Taşan Mountains form the Hacıpınar Stream; this stream passes through Osmancık and reaches the Kızılırmak. The forests contain beech, oak, elm and various pines. There are four irrigation ponds in the district; the largest is the Karaköy (Balıklı) pond, followed by the İmirler, Çitlibağlıca and Ayvalı ponds at the Keltepe locality.

The climate is a transitional one; it shows at times the character of the Black Sea and at times that of Central Anatolia. Summers are hot and dry, winters mild and rainy in the district centre, and cold and snowy at higher elevations. The annual mean temperature is given as 11.0 °C and rainfall as 435 mm. The hottest month is July (20.4 °C) and the coldest January (0.5 °C); May is the wettest month with 61 mm and August the driest with 14 mm. These values are averages drawn from Climate-Data.org.

Population

In 1831, the first regular census, 1,395 men were recorded in Gümüş and 3,218 in Hacıköy. In 1844 5 villages, 3 quarters and 727 households were counted in the kaza of Hacıköy; in this census women were included for the first time, and the population was estimated by multiplying the number of households by five (3,635). The total given by Vital Cuinet for 1875 is 24,977, and the figure reported for 1881 is 25,146. In 1903 the district's population is 27,548, in 1907 31,316 and in 1914 32,339. In 1927, the first census of the Republic, the centre's population is 6,139 and the overall total 26,264; it becomes 30,418 in 1940, 36,108 in 1950 and 42,564 in 1965.

The rural population reaches its highest level in 1970, at 33,443. The total population is at its peak in 1980 with 46,924. The district centre has its most crowded period in 1985 with 15,048. With the separation of Hamamözü as a district in 1990 the total population falls to 35,225, and to 29,735 in 2000; the separation of Hamamözü is the principal reason for the drop between 1985 and 1990. The population, 25,632 in 2007, has fallen to 22,663 in 2024 (urban 14,819, rural 7,945; TÜİK ADNKS). While the centre's population has hovered around 14-15 thousand since 2000, the rural population fell from 12,785 in 2007 to 8,121 in 2019. In 2019 the most populous quarter is Artıkabat with 5,333 people, followed by Hacıyahya (2,872), Saray (2,285) and Cumara (2,034). The district has six quarters in the centre and six in the town of Gümüş. The number of villages is 44 in one source; an older presentation speaks of 42 villages.

Education and Sport

After the Constitutional Revolution, teachers graduating from teachers' schools began to come to the district, but their numbers were small and there was no budget set aside for education. Teachers' salaries were paid from a school levy collected from the people. To increase this revenue, in 1907 the Maarif Bath was built through the efforts of District Governor Tahir Bey and the people; the bath was demolished in 2010. From 1928 education was organised under a single roof; the district education office also began work the same year within the Kemal Paşa School opened in the Saray quarter, and the education officer was at the same time the school's principal. The first education officer assigned to the district was Haydar Aras, a graduate of the Erzurum Teachers' School, born in Horasan.

According to the district presentation there are today in the district one kindergarten, eight primary schools, seven middle schools, four secondary schools and one vocational training centre, as well as a public education centre, a teachers' lodge, a private dormitory and rehabilitation centres; in a total of 28 institutions 3,035 students study with 330 teachers. For the Hasan Duman Vocational School, attached to Amasya University, the decision of foundation was taken in 2010; the school began teaching in 2011-2012 with the Banking and Insurance and Finance departments, and a Securities and Capital Markets programme was later added.

In sport the most notable branch is wrestling. Ahmet Yücel, of the Gümüş Sports Club, won Turkish championships in 2013-2018, third place at the Europeans among minis in 2017 and third place at the world championships among juniors in 2018; Alper Turan, Emircan Çolak and other athletes have also reached Turkish and European placings. The district also has clubs in traditional archery, rahvan horse racing, volleyball, bridge and wheelchair basketball. The city stadium opened in the 1983-1984 football season, in 2015 lanes suited to rahvan horse races were built, and the International Traditional Archery Festival is also held in this area. The National Motorsport Super Enduro Races and karakucak wrestling are among the other events mentioned in the official presentation. Dates change from year to year; for the current calendar one should consult the municipality.

Economy and Production

The backbone of the economy is farming and stock-raising. The principal field crops are sugar beet, wheat, barley, pulses, tobacco, onions, sunflower and hemp; fruit, apples above all, is grown along the watercourses. The region's basma tobacco is known for lending flavour and aroma in tobacco blends. Of the 230,500 decares of agricultural land, 193,179 decares are given to field crops, 4,837 to fruit and 1,250 to vegetables; irrigable land is 46.1 percent and dry farming 53.9 percent. In stock-raising about 20 thousand cattle, 17 thousand sheep and goats and 2,191 beehives are counted; poultry is concentrated in four commercial enterprises and exceeds 300 thousand birds. It is also written that manganese deposits exist in the district's lands. Mining, however, is no longer an active line of business today.

Hemp has a place of its own. According to the district governorate's documents, hemp was sown in a corner of the fields until the 1970s and met the need for weaving. It is written that in 1941 the price of Gümüşhacıköy hemp fibre fell from 70 kuruş to 66 kuruş, and that in 1958 all of the 2,243 hectares' worth of hemp seed sown in Kastamonu was supplied from the district. A large rope factory processing hemp, two flour mills and chickpea roasting (leblebicilik), a traditional occupation, are also parts of the district economy. Gümüşhacıköy is also described as one of the economically less developed districts of Amasya.

Cuisine and Tradition

The district's food culture is listed in groups in the official presentation: soups such as sıkma tarhana, toyka and çatal soup; meat dishes such as keşkek, şıngır kebab and hamur yahnisi; vegetable dishes such as madımak, aubergine varieties and pirpirim; pastries such as puaça, kaypak, yakasal börek and gömbe; pilafs with eriște and with squash skin; and sweets such as paluze, tırtıl baklava and höşmerim.

The best known of these is keşkek. According to the account, in Gümüşhacıköy a festival means keşkek. On the eve of the festival the keşkek is put into çömlek, deep, two-handled, rounded earthenware pots, and slid into wood-fired ovens called black ovens (kara fırın); on the morning of the festival those leaving the prayer collect the pots and go home. If the pot is in a neighbourhood oven near the house, the women of the household bring the pots until the men return from the prayer. The feature that distinguishes the district's keşkek is that after it comes out of the oven it goes through a stirring process called "çalma", until it reaches the consistency of mastic gum, that is, until the grains merge and become a paste, and that a sauce of tomato-paste butter is poured over it when served. The measures of the recipe are not given in these sources, and so they have not been written.

Gümüşhacıköy also has a literary side. According to the accounts, the wealth of the mine brought the region madrasas, libraries, inns and baths; because it lay on the Istanbul road it also became a stopping place for folk minstrels (âşık), and a literary circle formed here that contributed to divan and folk poetry. It is recorded that in 1943, in the Black Sea collections of Muzaffer Sarısözen and his colleagues, work was also done in most of the district's villages.

What Lies Around

Merzifon is 18 km away. Towards the north, in the direction of Vezirköprü, there is also a plateau road. An English-language source says there is a picnic area with a waterfall near Şarlayuk; no additional source has been found on its location and access. It would be wise to consult local sources before making a visit plan. Gümüşhacıköy is the story of a worked mine and of the market that formed around it, more than of a showy tourist attraction.

Chronology

3rd millennium BC: Traces of mining activity at Gümüş.

985-986: According to Hüseyin Hüsameddin, the town begins to be called Gümüş.

1075: Danishmendid Melik Ahmed Gazi takes Gümüş.

1263: Kılıçarslan IV has coins struck at the Gümüş Mint.

1378-1379: Through the restoration by Sadreddin Artuk, Hacıköy takes the name "Artukabad".

1386: In the reign of Murad I, Prince Bayezid attaches the region to the Ottomans.

1403-1404: Kutlu Beyzade Halil Bey becomes mine superintendent of Gümüş.

1413-1415: Construction of the Haliliye Madrasa.

1429: The Yörgüç Pasha Mosque (1429-1430 according to the sources).

1490-1491: Hacı Ahmed Çelebi settles in Hacıköy as mine nazır.

1520: 16 quarters and 3,589 people in Gümüş; 1576: 19 quarters, 6,602 people.

1660-1661: Köprülü Mehmed Pasha's endowment of the bedesten, mosque, bath and caravanserai.

1756-1757: Abdülbaki Bey becomes mine superintendent of Gümüş.

1800-1801: The Gümüşhacıköy mine is "opened and unlocked" (feth ve güşad) and new pits are opened.

1831: First regular census; Gümüş 1,395, Hacıköy 3,218 men.

1842: Edhem Bey is appointed director of the Maden-i Hümayun.

1868: Decision to establish a weekly Wednesday market in the kaza of Gümüş.

1885: The name "Gümüşhacıköy" appears for the first time as a kaza in the State Yearbook.

1892: The Gümüş Mine Superintendency is abolished.

1909: The Gümüş Madeni Town is made a subdistrict and attached to Gümüşhacıköy.

1927: District population 26,264.

1980: District population at its peak of 46,924.

1990: Hamamözü becomes a district.

2024: District population 22,663.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi (cited through the sources above) amasya.gov.tr

Official sources

  • Amasya Governorate, "Gümüşhacıköy: Gümüş-Gümüşhacıköy Tarihi", amasya.gov.tr gumushacikoy.gov.tr
  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Gümüşhacıköy", amasya.ktb.gov.tr
  • Gümüşhacıköy District Governorate, "İlçe Tanıtımı", gumushacikoy.gov.tr
  • Turkish Culture Portal, "Haliliye Medresesi", kulturportali.gov.tr kulturportali.gov.tr

Other sources

  • Songül Keçeci Kurt - Gürkan Cevger, "XIX. Yüzyılın İlk Çeyreğinde Gümüşhacıköy Madenlerinin Durumu", ASEAD, C. 6, S. 10, 2019, s. 220-238
  • Wikipedia, "Gümüşhacıköy" (Turkish and English articles) tr.wikipedia.org

Online sources