SARDIS

After the end of the Pergamene kingdom Magnesia ad Sipylum became part of the Roman Province of Asia in 129 B.C. it contin-ued to be an important city under the Byzantines, and in 1222 John III Vatatzes (r. 1222-54) temporarily moved his capital here from Nicaea in order to pursue a campaign against the Latins in Asia Minör and the Aegean. The ruined cııadel on the acropolis hill knovvn as Sandık Tepesi is entirely Byzantine in construction. The lovver vvalls were erected by John III, vvhile those on the summit date from the eighth century A.D., probably erected on the foundations of the ancient fortress there.
The city was captured from the Byzantines in 1313 by the Türkmen Emir Sanıhan, vvho gave his name to the beylik that he founded with its capital at Manisa, as it vvas knovvn to the Turks. Manisa was conquered by Beyazit I in 1390, but after the Ottoman defeat at Ankara in 1402 Tamerlane restored the city and the rest of the beylik to the Emir of Sanıhan. The beylik vvas recaptured by Mehmet I in 1415, after vvhich it became a permanent part of the Ottoman Empire. Thereafter Manisa vvas one of the most impor­tant provincial capitals in Anatolia, and several of the royal Otto­man princes served here in turn as governor before succeeding to the throne, including the future Sultan Mehmet II (r. 1451-81), the conqueror of Constantinople. Consequently, Manisa is endovved with a number of fine mosques and other pious foundations built
by the Ottoman royal family, in addition to those erected earlier by the Saruhan emirs.The principal Saruhan monument in Manisa is at the southern end of the town at the foot of the acropoüs hill. This is the Ulu Cami, built in 1376 by the Saruhan Emir İshak Bey, whose türbe and medrese are attached to the western side of the mosque and its courtyard. The mosque itself is preceded by a şadırvan court mea-suring 29.90 by 15.30 meters, with the minaret rising from the northvvest conıer of the courtyard. The central area around the octagonal şadirvan is surrounded on three sides by a portico of nineteen units covered by Iow domical vaults, with seven bays along the north and three pairs of two each on the sides. Many of the columns and capitals in the courtyard and vvithin the mosque and medrese are late Roman or early Byzantine, as are other archi-tectural elements, ali of them undoubtedly taken from earlier build-ings of Magnesia ad Sipylum. The prayer hail, which measures 29.90 by 15.30 meters, has the same number and arrangement of bays as the courtyard. The area in front of the mihrab—the niche indicating the kible, the direction of Mecca—is covered by a dome 10.80 meters in diameter. The dome rests on four pendentives above the diagonals of the octagonal base formed by the kible wall and six free-standing piers. The carved wooden mimber, or pulpit, is a particularly fine work in the Selçuk style