Cultural site: Novi Pazar Fortress with the old bazaar and the complex around the Altun-alem mosque

History

Novi Pazar City Fortress - The rampart with the Watchtower is one of the most important historical building complexes in Novi Pazar. It was built on the order of the founder of Novi Pazar, Isa-beg Ishaković, immediately after the founding of the city, in the sixth decade of the 15th century. The fortress existed at that time as a small

fortification surrounded by a moat, an earthen embankment and a wall of upright pierced logs. For the most part, the fortress consisted of palisades and balconies. After the Austro-Turkish War, around 1692, according to preserved documents, an inner city was built within the fortress. and stone ramparts between the towers. In front of the fortification was a ditch filled with water. Within the fortress there was also the Askerli (military) mosque, which was demolished during the First World War.

Cultural site details

The first archeological excavation of the northern bastion - the ramparts of the Novi Pazar Fortress, is one of the most important projects of the museum and the city of Novi Pazar, began in 2019 with the results of research from November this year. Protective excavations of the northern bastion of the Novi Pazar fortress are being carried out with the aim of revitalizing the tower, better known as "Jephana". A coin from 1618, found during the cleaning of the tower, the Hungarian silver dinar (ruler Matthias II), shows that the earliest period of construction of the tower could be 1618, and a typical Ottoman building was built before the bastion was built.2 The Sejir Tower or the Watchtower is a real decoration inside the large and spacious Novi Pazar Wall or Fortress. The tower is located between the northern and western bastions. It served as an observation post with a wide field of vision to secure the ramparts from possible attackers. It has an octagonal base from which high walls are raised. The tower, about 15 meters high, was intended to observe the fortress from all possible positions. The rampart that exists today is related to the year 1758, when the Bosnian vizier asked the Novi Pazar Qadi for the last renovation of the ramparts. Archaeological research has established that there is an older fortification associated with the Jephana Tower and that the Jephana Tower may be older than that fortification. According to archaeologists, archeologists state that the city was built in phases and defended much more seriously than previously thought.