Restoration work is underway on monuments in the historic Murat Reis Cemetery – the eponymous Murat Reis Mosque and the Mehmet Sekib Mausoleum – within the Medieval City of Rhodesa UNESCO World Heritage Site, in accordance with the wider planning of the Ministry of Culture.
The project of highlighting and restoring the Murat Reis cemetery, with a total budget of 400,000 euros, is financed by the Recovery and Resilience Fund and is carried out by the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Dodecanese.
The architectural proposal
The 8-acre Murat Reis complex is an international pilgrimage site
It was created in the 17th century at the northern end of Rhodes, outside the medieval walls, on the sea front, where it was also the administrative center of the city. It was originally built in 1636-37 by Ebu Berk Pasha and rebuilt in 1797-98 by Murabit Hasan Bey in its present form.
It includes the tomb of Murat Reis and the homonymous mosque, the purification fountain, a “tekke” (hermitage, hermitage of dervishes), the guardian’s residence and the cemetery, in which 7 domed mausoleums (turbeds) stand out.
Mehmet Shekib after the collapse
Murat Reis Mosque
It belongs to the type of square hall with a dome, without openings. It consists of a prayer hall (harem), covered with a hemispherical dome, the prayer niche (mihrab), the pulpit (minber), and the court which was a prayer area for women.
On the west side of the mosque rises the minaret, 19 m high, which adjoins the mosque, without, however, being connected to it. At the base of the minaret, a communication door opens with the mosque, which leads to the space under the porch, while a door also opens to the porch.
Originally, the minaret had a conical end. It was, however, reconstructed in its current form, in the restoration of the mosque by the Italians, after the destruction it suffered from the bombings, during the occupation of Rhodes (Italian occupation 1912-1943).
In the 1990s, because the minaret was showing extensive wear and tear, it was removed and rebuilt
At the entrance of the mosque there was a tripartite porch, the revac, which today has collapsed, as well as a second successive wooden porch, as depicted in drawings by Balducci (1931).
The mosque is kept in relatively good condition and does not face serious structural problems. The problems it presents are related to the aging of the materials, the rising and falling moisture in the masonry and the highly corrosive conditions of the area, due to its proximity to the sea. An important structural problem of the mosque is the collapse of the porch.
Murat Reis Mosque
The approved static study aims to address the structural problems and to improve the existing structure reinforcement system, to control deterioration and to highlight its historical and architectural significance.
The Mehmet Sekib Pasha mausoleum collapsed in 2013 due to severe weather conditions, but the causes of the collapse are found in the construction of the monument and the poor condition it had fallen into due to aging and failure of the materials.
According to the inscription on the tomb, Mehmet Sekib died in 1894. However, the mausoleum in its current form was built after 1927 during the Italian occupation, during the administration of Mario Lago.
The aim of the works is to restore the form of the burial monument, as it was rendered during the Italian occupation with an effort to integrate and reuse as many architectural members as their state of preservation allows, after their maintenance and repair.
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