Located at the Çifte Minareli Medrese, this is an imaret boiler from the sixteenth century. It’s from the nearby Lala Mustafa Pasha mosque which was constructed in 1562. The boiler was likely used to cook food, likely wheat soup or pilaf, which would probably feed travellers, the poor and students.
In itself, this is perhaps just a routine exhibit in a museum, but it has a deeper significance and that’s why I’m treating it to its own blog post. There’s a human connection here, this would have been used to be a public good to feed those who needed help at a very different time in history. At some point in time, there would have been someone in need looking at this boiler with hope and excitement.
Erzurum had been part of the Ottoman Empire since 1514 and so this boiler was likely from not long after that. This was a period of great Ottoman power, something which lasted ultimately until the First World War, and this simple boiler is some connection with that vanished world.