The plaque by the door says 1865. The heritage list says 1863. The scholar gives a whole reign, 1861 to 1876, and no year. Three lines about one building: lay them on the wall, piece by piece, and measure what can be measured.
In 2026: 163 years by the list, 161 by the plaque.
The year calculation runs locally in your browser.
The minaret of the Azizyie mosque above Tulcea, with the hill that spells TULCEA. Photo: Colicaranica, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
At 2 Independenței Street, in the centre of Tulcea — a Romanian port town on the Danube — stands a white, square building with two rows of arched windows and a thin minaret attached to its wall. It is the Azizyie mosque, named after Sultan Abdülaziz, in whose reign it was raised. By the door, a white plaque says, in Turkish and Romanian, that the mosque was built in the time of Sultan Abdülaziz: 1865.
Romania’s listed-buildings register says another year: 1863. Row 493 records “Moscheea Azizyie”, Tulcea, 2 Independenței Street, dated 1863, code TL-II-m-A-05984, category A. And Semavi Eyice, the historian who described the mosque in the Islamic encyclopedia in Istanbul, gives no year: from its name and its architecture, he writes, the building belongs to the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz, 1861–1876.
Three lines, three datings, one wall. The sources opened here give no documentary basis for the year: no firman opened, no deed of endowment opened. Eyice notes that, architecturally, the building carries no ornament at all. So no year is picked: the three datings are laid on the wall, one after another, and what can be measured is measured.
The records give different years, and the cause of the discrepancy is not established. The plaque is a white, modern tablet with Romanian text lacking diacritics — and 1865 is also the year on the Muftiate’s page, archived in 2013 and 2017. The list is an administrative act of 2010, which records the year without showing its source. The scholar writes in 1991 and dates by style, not by paper. Three ways of knowing, three answers.
1863 and 1865 disagree with each other; the reign-based dating, 1861–1876, accommodates both. And the scholar’s word meets a measure on the wall: “about 20 metres”, he wrote; 19.1 metres is what the building’s open outline gives, with the difference printed beside it.
Tulcea was then Tulça, a Danube landing and market town on the Danube’s right bank, at the entrance to the delta. Dobruja — the region between the Danube and the Black Sea — had come under Ottoman rule in 1419; around 1530, the Tolçı landing and village counted 167 households, 59 bachelors, 13 widows and 55 households from elsewhere temporarily staying there, plus two Roma households — about 1,500 people, with a landing revenue of 56,000 akçe.
In 1621, Sultan Osman II, passing through Tulça on the Polish campaign, had a fort, a mosque and a bath raised here. In the seventeenth century Tulça became the centre of a kaza — an Ottoman district — and in 1657 Evliya Çelebi saw the town and described the fort on the Danube bank. In the nineteenth century the town entered, with all of Dobruja, the Danube vilayet (province) of Midhat Pasha.
When the mosque was raised, Tulça was an Ottoman landing and market town on the Danube road, and the mosque rose in the middle of town. Ottoman rule over Dobruja lasted 459 years, from 1419 to 1878 — and the mosque was raised 13 or 15 years before that line, depending on which year you count.
By the decisions of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Northern Dobruja passed to Romania, and Tulça left Ottoman administration. Part of the town’s Muslim population left then for Ottoman lands. The mosque stayed: in 1878 it was 13 years old by the plaque or 15 by the list. In 1966 Eyice found the interior clean, with the carpets laid, but the windows broken; in 1976, Eyice writes, Ekrem Hakkı Ayverdi found the building in very good condition. Between the two viewings, ten years apart, the Muftiate places a restoration: 1970.
Today Tulcea is a county capital. The town also has an Orthodox cathedral and Armenian, Russian and Catholic churches — the listing is the TULÇA article’s. Of the landing of around 1530, a port town remains where the river splits toward the delta; of the Ottoman market town, among other things, the white wall at 2 Independenței Street.
Year on stage: —
Touch a piece of the drawing or a name below: each tells its date.
The line from the records
“AZİZİYE CAMİİ / SULTAN ABDULAZIZ DÖNEMINDE / YAPTIRILMISTIR – 1865” — “GEAMIA AZIZIE / CONSTRUITA IN PERIOADA / SULTANULUI ABDULAZIZ / 1865”
The plaque on the wall, transcribed from Balkanique’s photograph, 2018 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The line from the records
“493 TL-II-m-A-05984 Moscheea Azizyie municipiul TULCEA Str. Independenţei 2 1863” — “494 TL-II-m-B-05985 Fosta şcoala turcească municipiul TULCEA Str. Independenţei 4 1865”
The 2010 heritage list, Tulcea county, Official Gazette 670 bis/2010.
The line from the records
“Adından ve mimarisinden de anlaşıldığı gibi Sultan Abdülaziz’in saltanat yıllarında (1861-1876) yaptırılmıştır.”
Semavi Eyice, “AZİZİYE CAMİİ”, the TDV Islamic encyclopedia, vol. 4, 1991, pp. 347–348.
The line from the records
“Her bir kenarı dıştan 20 m. kadar uzunlukta bir kare biçiminde” — “a square with each side, outside, about 20 m long”.
Eyice, 1991; the outline: OpenStreetMap, way 854940904.
On the map the side is 19.13 m; the scholar wrote “about 20 metres”. The difference is under one metre.
The line from the records
“Sağ duvarına bitişik ince, uzun bir minaresi vardır.”
Eyice: a thin, tall minaret, attached to the right-hand wall; Ülgen (2013): with a single balcony.
“In anul 1897 … este refacut minaretul daramat al moscheii.”
Valentina Postelnicu, Tulcea de altădată, quoted by the county library — with a 1,000 lei grant from the ministry; a later history, not the act of the time: “… the collapsed minaret of the mosque was rebuilt.”
The line from the records
“1966’da gördüğümüzde Aziziye Camii’nin içi temiz ve halıları döşeli olmakla beraber camları kırıktı.”
Eyice on the 1966 viewing and on Ayverdi’s reported 1976 viewing; the Muftiate attests the 1970 restoration.
The line from the records
“1878 Berlin Kongresi kararları uyarınca Kuzey Dobruca kesiminin Romanya’ya verilmesi üzerine Tulça Osmanlı idaresinden çıktı.”
The TULÇA article, the TDV Islamic encyclopedia: in 1878, Tulça leaves Ottoman administration.
The line from the records
“Pe langa geamie a mai functionat si o scoala turca.”
Postelnicu, quoted by the county library: beside the mosque a Turkish school functioned.
The drawing shows the mosque as a schematic elevation: wall with two window rows, door with plaque, adjoining school, minaret and wooden gallery inside. Heights are schematic; only the 19.1 m footprint is measured.
Schematic drawing after photographs, Eyice’s article and the OpenStreetMap outline; heights are not to scale, the school’s seat is schematic.
Each stop lays one record line on the piece of wall it names.
The plaque
On the wall, a white tablet gives the year in two languages: Turkish above, Romanian below, the Romanian text without diacritics. The tablet is modern, with painted letters, and the year it carries, 1865, is also the year on the Muftiate’s page.
Scroll on: the list.
The list
The heritage list records the mosque at row 493: “Moscheea Azizyie”, 2 Independenței Street, dated 1863, category A. The next row, 494, records the former Turkish school, at number 4, dated 1865. Two neighbouring buildings, two neighbouring years, one act.
Scroll on: the scholar.
The scholar
Semavi Eyice describes the mosque without giving it a year: by name and architecture, it belongs to the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz, 1861–1876, and to the Tanzimat style of the reform age. Unadorned; a square of about 20 metres a side; tiled timber roofing; two rows of windows, and no entrance porch.
Scroll on: the measure.
The measure
The scholar wrote “about 20 metres”. The building’s outline in OpenStreetMap measures 19.12 / 19.15 / 19.12 / 19.13 — 19.13 a side on average, an area of 366.4 m² against the round 400 m². The difference, 0.87 m, is under one metre: word and measure meet here.
Scroll on: the minaret.
The minaret
The minaret is thin and tall, attached to the right-hand wall — Eyice's description; one balcony, after Ülgen; the photographs show railing, cap and crescent. The town’s later history says the collapsed minaret was rebuilt in 1897, with 1,000 lei from the ministry; the Muftiate says it was raised with Turkey’s support, undated.
Scroll on: the windows.
The windows
In 1966 Eyice finds the interior clean and the carpets laid, but the windows broken. In 1970 the Muftiate records a restoration. In 1976, Eyice writes, Ayverdi found the mosque in very good condition. Ten years between the two viewings; one restoration between them.
Scroll on: the line.
The line
The mosque was raised 13 years before 1878, by the plaque, or 15, by the list. Then: Northern Dobruja passed to Romania, and part of the town’s Muslims left for Ottoman lands. The mosque stayed standing — and in 2014 it appeared on a Romanian stamp: “TULCEA — Geamia Aziziye”.
Scroll on: today.
Today
The plaque, by the door: two languages, one year, 1865. The school, at number 4: 1865 in the list, the plaque's year, in another act. The minaret: the thin shaft, the single balcony, the cap — its year is not established; 1897 is the year of a rebuilding from a book.
Scroll on: what to look at.
The mosque stands at 2 Independenței Street, in the centre of Tulcea. Three things can be seen from the street, without going in — in the walk’s order.
The white tablet gives the year in two languages: “AZİZİYE CAMİİ … 1865” above, “GEAMIA AZIZIE … 1865” below. The Romanian text has no diacritics and spells AZIZIE, with no Y. It is the dating you see first — and the Muftiate’s dating.
The house next door is the former Turkish school of the list: row 494, dated 1865, category B. In the photograph, the mosque’s minaret rises right behind it. Beside the mosque a Turkish school functioned — the sentence is the town history’s.
The thin white shaft, as Eyice describes it; the single balcony, as Ülgen gives it; the iron parapet, conical cap and crescent, as the close-up shows them. The present wall’s year is not established: 1897 is the book’s year for the collapsed minaret rebuilt then.
And if you remember a year — a birth, a grandmother — put it in the box at the top: the illustration shows what the records establish for that year, not what the wall looked like.
When you reach 2 Independenței Street, stand before the wall and read it in its order: the plaque by the door first, then the school door at number 4, then the foot of the minaret. Three datings in a single courtyard wall — 1865, 1865, and an 1897 rebuilding that stands in a book. And if you lost or won Tulcea in the game, go back to your year at the top: that year has its own line in the records too, with its date a year or two less settled.
Further: Enisala · Ada-Kaleh, the drowned island · Evliya Çelebi, who saw Tulça in 1657.
