The Döner Kümbet is one of the finest examples of Seljuk funerary architecture in Turkey, a twelve-sided tower tomb built in the late thirteenth century from warm yellow stone. The exterior is covered with carved reliefs of birds, mythological creatures, geometric interlacing, and vegetal scrollwork — a remarkable concentration of decorative craft on a relatively small structure. It stands beside a cemetery on Talas Street, a short walk from the castle.
The tomb was built for Princess Şah Cihan Hatun and represents the mature Seljuk style at its most refined. The interior, where the sarcophagus once stood, is cylindrical and decorated with carved inscriptions. The contrast between the simple cone roof, the ornate middle section, and the plain lower base gives the building a satisfying structural logic that many later Ottoman tombs would echo.
The Döner Kümbet can be visited quickly — fifteen minutes is enough to walk around it and absorb the detail — and it fits well into a circuit of the old city's Seljuk monuments.