Sultan Alau-ed-din, great King of Kings, Master of the Necks of Nations, Lord of the Kings of Arabia and Persia, Sultan of the Territories of God, Alaudunya Wa-ed-din Abd-ul-Fath, Commander of the Faithful, ordered the building of this blessed khan in the month of Rejeb in the year 662 a.h." (1264 a.d.)
Sultan Khan lies about thirty miles west of Archelais, in the arid, treeless waste known in antiquity as the Axylon, and now as the Lycaonian desert, though the soil is abundantly productive wherever there is a supply of water. It was the presence of water that caused the khan to be built on its actual site, and this water makes it possible for the inhabitants of the wretched village to eke out a miserable existence, gained chiefly from their flocks of fat-tailed sheep. In a thriftless, insufficient way they make some provision for their flocks against the time when nature is dead; and nature is dead in mid-summer as well as in mid-winter in parts of Asia Minor. This attempt at provident provision is evidenced by the pitiful heaps of hay stored on the roofs of the houses, out of the reach of animals. The poverty-stricken village presents a striking contrast with the noble ruin to whose side it clings.
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Grand Portal of Sultan Khan in Lycaonia
On passing through the portal of Sultan Khan, we see at once that we have before us a marked deviation from the type of karwan-serai described above, though the essential feature of the tetragonal court is maintained. The khan is divided into two distinct parts. The front and larger half, which surrounds the open court, adapts the karwan-serai to the colder climate of Lycaonia. The arcades for the accommodation of travellers have disappeared. On one side we find a series of chambers varying much in size. All of them are windowless, and receive no light or ventilation except through the small doors. They impress one as having been intended for the safekeeping of prisoners or harems rather than for the accommodation of travellers. However, on the opposite side of the open court there is a series of lofty intercommunicating arcades, in which the packs of the animals found protection from rain. These arcades, like their fellows in Mesopotamian khans, are open
