Turbék was an Ottoman-established settlement from the 16th and 17th centuries. It was situated next to

Szigetvár Szigetvár (; ; ) is a town in Baranya County in southern Hungary. The name is a compound word composed of ''Sziget'' (Island) + ''vár'' (castle). In October 2011, the city received the title ''Civitas Invicta'' from the Hungarian Parliament. T ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. Today, its former territories belong to the town of Szigetvár. According to archaeological research, Turbék is the exact place where Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent died during the

Siege of Szigetvár The siege of Szigetvár or the Battle of Szigeth (pronunciation: �siɡɛtvaːr ; ; ) was an Ottoman siege of the fortress of Szigetvár in the Kingdom of Hungary. The fort had blocked Sultan Suleiman's line of advance towards Vienna in 156 ...

. A tomb (''

türbe ''Türbe'' refers to a Muslim mausoleum, tomb or grave often in the Turkish-speaking areas and for the mausolea of Ottoman sultans, nobles and notables. A typical türbe is located in the grounds of a mosque or complex, often endowed by the ...

'') was built for Sultan Suleiman at the site where his body was kept for a short time and his heart and internal organs were reportedly buried. Later, a mosque, a

dervish Dervish, Darvesh, or Darwīsh (from ) in Islam can refer broadly to members of a Sufi fraternity (''tariqah''), or more narrowly to a religious mendicant, who chose or accepted material poverty. The latter usage is found particularly in Persi ...

cloister, and a military barracks emerged around the tomb and the place became a Muslim pilgrimage site. However, in the 1680s the

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...

troops destroyed the settlement of Turbék completely to erase any traces of the Ottomans, leaving behind stone foundations no more than 15 inches tall.

Archaeological excavation

In 2015, in the town of Szigetvar in southern Hungary, geophysical examinations using

ground penetrating radar Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-intrusive method of surveying the sub-surface to investigate underground utilities such as concrete, asphalt, metals, pipes, cables ...

revealed the foundations of five structures below the surface of a vineyard owned by Gyula Kereszturi. A 1664 sketch by Pal Esterhazy, a Hungarian military commander, purportedly showed the layout of the settlement. Using this sketch, the geographers were able to compare their findings from the geological examination and discovered their findings lined up as a near match with the sketch which showed "a mosque, an Islamic dervish monastery, and a military barracks" built around the tomb. In 2016, a team began excavating the area and unearthed the foundations of the "mausoleum complex of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire's most prolific builder and accomplished military leader," including the monastery and military barracks.

References

Ottoman period in Hungary Baranya County Somogy County Suleiman the Magnificent 1566 in the Ottoman Empire {{Hungary-geo-stub