Archaeological Research of the Ottoman Palace in Szolnok

The Ottomans occupied Szolnok, a town by the Tisza River in the Great Hungarian Plain, in 1552, little more than a decade after conquering Buda. In the following period, it has become a major sanjak (sancak) seat in the northernmost Buda vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. Its administrative position changed in 1596, following the occupation of Eger, when it became part of the Eger pasalik and remained there until the Hungarian armies recaptured it in 1685. Little is known about the architecture of this period due to the lack of written sources and archaeological research. In his notes on his trip to Szolnok in 1665, Evliya Çelebi only mentions a single building, the royal mosque in the castle, which suggests that there were no other remarkable buildings within the palisade fort at the time. Therefore, the discovery of a two-storey Ottoman monumental building representing a type unknown in the occupied territories before came as a surprise in 2018. This paper presents the identified architectural details, paving the way for future architectural and historical reconstructions.