Lost tomb of 'Suleiman the Magnificent' possibly unearthed

Lost tomb of 'Suleiman the Magnificent' possibly unearthed

By Tia Ghose
Published December 10, 2015
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A portrait of Suleiman the Magnificent attributed to Italian painter
Titian, 1530.

A portrait of Suleiman the Magnificent attributed to Italian painter
Titian, 1530. (Public Domain)

The lost tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent, one of the greatest rulers
of the Ottoman Empire, may have been unearthed in southern Hungary.

"Currently everything suggests that this building could have been
Suleiman's tomb. However, in order to be able to assert this with 100
percent certainty, further examinations and the excavations of the
other surrounding buildings are necessary," said Norbert Pap, a
researcher at the University of Pécs in Hungary who led the
excavations.

The 71-year-old Ottoman sultan died in his tent in 1566 during a
military campaign against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was finally
buried in Istanbul (then known as Constantinople), and Suleiman's
embalmed body is now housed at the Süleymaniye Mosque there. But the
Ottomans also placed a small memorial tomb at the spot where he died.
Historians knew the rough location of this memorial tomb, but the exact
location was lost in the intervening 450 years.

Magnificent rule, secret death

Suleiman the Magnificent is often considered one of [178]history's
greatest rulers. He rose to the throne in 1520 at the tender age of 26
and quickly began a series of military campaigns, expanding Ottoman
control from Algiers in the west to Baghdad in the east.

In addition to his military prowess, Suleiman "the lawgiver" simplified
Ottoman legal code and funded the construction of some of
[179]Istanbul's most gorgeous architecture. His personal life was also
full of drama. (The intrigues of his harem were recently depicted in
the incredibly popular, soapy Turkish miniseries "The Magnificent
Century.")

He died in his imperial tent outside the castle of Szigetvár in
southern Hungary before his troops vanquished the Hungarian forces. His
advisers wanted to avoid a power vacuum before his son, Selim II, could
take the throne.

"So his body was taken back to Istanbul after his death and was kept as
a secret for 40-plus days," said Günhan Börekçi, a historian at
?stanbul ?ehir University, who was not involved in the current
excavation.

To maintain the charade, his advisers created elaborate ruses, faking
his handwriting on official documents. They even had a servant dress up
in his clothes, then faked the death of another servant so that they
could carry the sultan's body out of the camp in the servant's coffin,
Börekçi said.

Long-lost tomb

To find Suleiman's [180]lost tomb, Pap and his colleagues have spent
the last three years surveying areas around the castle for traces of
the tomb, using historical records as a guide.

"We know from archival registers what kind of a structure it was,"
Börekçi told Live Science. "This was Hungary, so it's a little far away
from the capital. It's not something really huge, it's a relatively
small one, like the ones we see constructed for dignitaries of the
era."


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