Some Thoughts About the Cannonballs Hanging at the Bazaar Gate of Konya Castle

Abstract

Throughout history, people have preferred to live together in society both for protection and to meet their needs. The ease of overcoming problems that they cannot solve alone is one of the important factors that pushes people to become social beings. Individuals in society have managed to solve their nutrition, shelter and protection needs individually in particular and holistically in general. Man, who has managed to meet these needs in the simplest form from cavities and caves to advanced architectures, has brought solutions on a larger scale with his legal existence as a society. 

In this context, city defense structures, examples of which are known before the Bronze Age and which have been used intensively especially since the Bronze Age, have confined civilizations within castles. Cities have maintained their control through gates opening into the interior from their high walls. Gates, which are important elements of city defense structures, have undertaken certain tasks in addition to ensuring safe passage. Cities have wanted to deter the enemy in advance by showing their military presence and power before they even arrive in the square. Many have benefited from propaganda elements. Among these traditions are the military equipment captured as spoils of war or the statues of one's own strong athletes and soldiers in visible places. 

The subject of our research is the tradition of hanging cannonballs, which is an example of one of the messages tried to be given on the historical city wall gates. The meaning of the cannonballs hanging from chains on the market gate of the city wall gates that stood from the time Konya became the capital of the Anatolian Seljuks until the end of the Ottoman Empire was tried to be explained.