MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

The Şehzade Mosque was commissioned by Sultan Suleiman I in

memory of his eldest son, Prince Mehmet, who died of smallpox at the
age of 21 in 1543, though the cause for his death is disputed. It was the
first major commission by the Imperial Architect Mimar Sinan, and was
completed in 1548. It is considered by architectural historians as
Sinan's first masterpiece of classical Ottoman architecture.
A civil engineer working in the construction company that
undertook the restoration work of the Şehzade Mosque narrated the
following on a TV interview during 1990s:
"Along the lines of the restoration plan, we had to replace some of
the stone blocks in the archways on the retaining walls surrounding the
courtyard, because they had partial decomposition. We had the theory
and textbook knowledge on how those archways were constructed,
however we lacked the know-how of building stone archways. We held
a meeting with the masons to decide about our action plan.
Consequently it was decided that a wooden cast would be suspended
under the arch while we would carefully remove the blocks one by one
and at the same time take notes about the method of construction to
emulate it in restoration.
We removed the cast and started fragmenting the arch beginning
first from the keystone. When we removed it, we were surprised to find
a glass bottle which was placed in a cylindrical gap at the junction point
of the two stone blocks.
There was a white paper rolled into the glass bottle. We opened it
and went through the paper. It was in Ottoman Turkish. We rushed to
find an expert to have it interpreted.
It was a letter, and it was penned by Mimar Sinan. The letter read
as follows:
'The stone blocks constituting this archway are to last for
approximately 400 years. In and about this time span you would wish to
replace the decomposing stone blocks. Most probably you would not
know how to do that by your new techniques. I therefore write this
letter to you to tell you how you could reconstruct the archways.'
Having started his letter with these lines, the great Mimar Sinan
went on to explain in detail the origins and features of the stones used
in the archways, how they hauled them from the quarries across
Anatolia, the way they were shaped into their proper sizes, and how
they were placed and assembled into the archways.
This letter is an example from the life of a master who showed a
phenomenal endeavour to make his work last for centuries. The
splendour of this letter lies in Mimar Sinan’s superior expertise of
knowing how long a stone block would last, his vision of approximating
the future developments in construction techniques, and writing his
letter in an ink and on a paper that would last more than 400 years.
Undoubtedly, such superior knowledge and dexterity are the distinctive
and inimitable features of the Architect Sinan. However, what really
inimitable are not only his intellect and talent, but his sense of
responsibility that provides solutions for more than 400 years into the
history.