From Lycia to Teke Province, from Cedar to Warehouse the Story of Antalya Wooden Granaries

Abstract

The geography of Anatolia is one of the important steps in human development from the Neolithic Age, shifting from hunter gathering to production culture. Antalya, located at the intersection of the Mediterranean and the Taurus Mountains, became one of the oldest inhabited production centers of Anatolia. The tradition of the wooden granary, called Ambar, centered in an area of the Taurus mountains, concentrated around the Beydağları near the western part of the city, is an important part of this production culture that still survives. Starting from the Konyaaltı countryside, Ambar found in some villages of Kumluca, Elmalı, Finike, Demre and Kaş were built with timber obtained from cedar, larch, or juniper trees according to the forest products in their regions. In my research I have found that certain Ambars, which in the past were built without using nails, were built in a region of Konyaaltı Doyran (Sinandeğirmeni), in the Bezirgan and Gökçeören villages of Kaş. In other areas, an ambar is often located as an extension of residences or in areas such as courtyards independent of the residence. The collective construction of these Ambar is a natural consequence of the plateau-coastal production relationship that has continued in these regions for thousands of years. It has necessitated the construction of these warehouses in a collective shared public area in settlements which were vacated due to the annual mass migration between the plateau and the coast. The aim of this study is to investigate the traditional civil architecture and agricultural culture of the Ambar, wooden storehouses and the distribution of these structures, most of which have shared historical characteristics.