Obruk Village Mosque (Mehmet Dede Obruk)
The Obruk Village Mosque stands in the square of Mehmet Dede Obruk, a village in the Dodurga district. According to Doğan Koşan’s 2025 article, the mosque is the only registered architectural monument in the district; the 2009 Çorum Cultural Inventory also lists the building in Obruk Village, Dodurga, under the name “Mehmetdede Camii”, owned by the village’s legal entity and registered by decision no. 5817 of 26 June 1998. For the shrine in Mehmetdede Tekke village, three kilometres to the west, see Dodurga: The Mehmetdede and Hüssem Dede Shrines.
The village
Koşan writes that the village is a Türkmen village founded on the bank of the Kızılırmak in the 13th century. According to Evliya Çelebi, who visited in 1649, Mehmet Şah Dede was among those who came from Khorasan and settled at a narrow pass on the river. The Karaman and Rum register of 1530 mentions the villages of Tekke and Obruk; the village was still called Obruk in 1925 and was later renamed “Mehmet Dede Obruk”. Obruk Dam, two kilometres to the south, takes its name from the village.
Dating
The mosque has no inscription or endowment deed. Above the door of the prayer hall the Hijri date 1271 (AD 1854) is painted on the plaster. Koşan argues that this is the date of the painted decoration rather than of construction, and that it was written incorrectly: in the mosque of Örübağ village in İskilip, painted by the same craftsmen, the Hijri year 1279 stands beside 1963 (instead of 1379), and in the Alören mosque in Mecitözü 1258 stands beside 1942. On this basis he reads Hijri 1271 as AD 1955.
Because its thick rubble-stone prayer hall and a porch with wooden posts and lath-and-plaster (bağdadi) walls resemble mosques such as Hıdırlık (1889) and Üçköy (1897) in the Çorum region, Koşan finds it appropriate to date the mosque to the late 19th century. The crescent-and-star relief on the keystone of the prayer-hall door is also cited as a clue supporting this dating.
Architecture
- Prayer hall: Almost square in plan. The walls are 90 cm thick, of roughly dressed rubble stone; corners, door and window openings and the eaves are of regularly cut stone, with lime mortar as binder. It is covered by a four-sided hipped roof (repaired in recent years). There is no minaret.
- Windows: The windows, with cut-stone frames, round arches and two casements, are all original; they have iron grilles and were painted later.
- Porch: On the north façade, open and arcaded, it consists of four wooden posts on a double course of cut-stone wall, five Bursa arches, and an upper part built up to the roof in lath-and-plaster. Its west side was later closed with brick.
- Interior: A flat timber ceiling with a seven-sided lath-work rosette at its centre. The mihrab niche is plain and narrow; the wooden pulpit (minbar) leans against the west wall; there is no preaching chair. In the middle section of the wooden gallery, which is carried on two wooden posts and projects towards the hall, a cypress tree is depicted in curved-cut work.
Painted decoration
The decoration is densest in the porch. On the arch pediment is a symmetrical plant composition in yellow, brown and blue, of S- and C-scrolled spring branches, ears of grain and flowers, with “maşallah” written in black in the middle. Depictions of architectural columns and spiral scrolls flank the door of the prayer hall. According to Koşan, traces of painted work also exist on the interior walls of the hall, but the surfaces were covered in lime in the early 2000s, so the compositions cannot be made out.
Koşan lists the mosques of Örübağ (1963) in İskilip, Çavuş (1949) in Amasya, Alören (1942) and Doğla (1946) in Mecitözü, and the ablution fountain of the Çorum Ulu Camii as examples in the same style, and says they are the work of the same travelling craftsmen. He also writes that the same craftsmen decorated the shrine in Mehmetdede Tekke village in 1947. The article recommends comprehensive conservation work so that the decoration can be revealed without destroying it. For similar examples in Mecitözü, see the Alören Village Complex and the Doğla Village Mosque.
Sources
- Doğan Koşan, “Çorum/Dodurga Mehmet Dede Obruk Köyü Cami ve Süslemeleri” (Çorum/Dodurga Mehmet Dede Obruk Village Mosque and Decorations), Asya Studies, 9/31, Spring 2025, pp. 189-202. DOI: 10.31455/asya.1584031. https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4361004
- Çorum Kültür Envanteri (Çorum Cultural Inventory), Çorum Governorate Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism Publications No. 3, Çorum 2009, Religious Buildings / Mosques, p. 284. https://www.kulturportali.gov.tr/medya/dokuman/dokumandetay/6074