Ottoman burial practices are placed within the general context of death and memory of the deceased of the Islamic world while bearing characteristics from pre-Islamic Central Asian perception. Monumental burial structures, from mausoleums to simple tombs, are found during Islamic dynasties of Turkish origin, such as the Ottomans. If a mausoleum suggests a particular financial, social or political status then, on a smaller scale and proportionally to status, an Ottoman grave stele can be considered as a three-dimensional object of art within the limits of a religious framework. In a semi-rural and urban environment the tomb and the text on the stele, following the customs, become exponents of their era with multiple messages. Through the example of two Ottoman steles in the Benaki Museum, we will observe the evolution of typology and the interactions with other funerary monuments within the Ottoman East Mediterranean, emphasizing on the material found in Greece. 

Dimitris Loupis studied Philosophy at the University of Athens, did his M.A. degree in Ottoman History at the Bilkent University in Ankara and in History of the Middle East at Harvard University. At the same university he is expected to complete this year his doctoral thesis on the early Ottoman period. He works at the Program of Ottoman Epigraphy at the Department of Neohellenic Research of the Institute of Historical Research at the National Hellenic Research Foundation. Under the same program he teaches for the third year, the seminar “Course of Ottoman Language and Paleography”. He has published on Ottoman cartography and navigation, as for example the diligent cartographer of the 16th century, Piri Reis and the idiosyncratic traveller of the 17th century, Evliya Celebi.