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The UNESCO-listed Divrigi Great Mosque and Hospital in Sivas draws visitors with monumental portals covered in thousands of three-dimensional stone motifs. At certain hours and during specific months, sunlight falling across the carvings brings out silhouettes resembling people praying, reading the Quran and deep in thought.
The adjoining mosque and medieval hospital were built in 1228 during the Mengujekid period. Ahmed Shah commissioned the mosque, while Melike Turan Melek commissioned the hospital beside it in the same year.
The northern portal, widely known as the Heaven Gate, brings together some of the complex's most elaborate stonework. Its decorations include roses, tulips, vines and small garden-like compositions associated with paradise.
During July and August, sunlight creates a shadow resembling a woman praying at the Heaven Gate at around 7 a.m. The figure appears with her hands folded across her chest, while details resembling a headdress and eyelashes can also be made out.
Visitors often plan their trips around the afternoon hours to see the shadows appearing at the Western Crown Gate. As the angle of the sunlight shifts, the carved surface begins to bring out different human forms.
One of the silhouettes at the western portal resembles a man reading the Quran. Volunteer guide Mustafa Yildirim said the figure was first noticed by a Japanese visitor in 2005.
As the sunlight continues to move across the gate, the silhouette takes on the appearance of a man praying. The other shadow figures across the complex were identified after the first discovery at the Western Crown Gate.
The smaller Shah Gate bears an inscription meaning "Sovereignty belongs to God." Its low entrance is believed to have required the ruler to bow while passing through, symbolically setting aside pride and recognizing divine authority.
At the entrance to the medieval hospital, sunlight creates a silhouette resembling a man deep in thought. Another figure appearing at the Shah Gate is believed to represent the head of Ahmed Shah, who commissioned the mosque.
None of the thousands of asymmetrical motifs decorating the portals repeat one another. "There are thousands of motifs on the gates. This is a gate where the stones speak, and every motif carries more than one meaning," Yildirim said.
European scholars have compared the site's detailed stone craftsmanship with the Alhambra Palace in Granada, leading the Divrigi complex to be described as "Anatolia's Alhambra."
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