Dictionary:
car·a·van·sa·ry (kăr'ə-văn'sə-rē)  also car·a·van·se·rai
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[French caravanserai, from Persian kārvānsarāy : kārvān, caravan + sarāy, camp, palace.]
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: caravansary |
For more information on caravansary, visit Britannica.com.
| Archaeology Dictionary: caravanserai |
A staging-post on a camel caravan route where rest and refreshment were available. Also known as a khan.
| Obscure Words: caravanserai |
| Wikipedia: Caravanserai |
A caravanserai (Persian: كاروانسرا kārvānsarā) was a (usually Persian-inspired or built) roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and South-Eastern Europe.
| “ | Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, |
” |
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—Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Stanza 17 in the 5th Edition |
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Most typically a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. The courtyard was almost always open to the sky, and the inside walls of the enclosure were outfitted with a number of identical stalls, bays, niches, or chambers to accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise.[1]
Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing, and ritual ablutions. Sometimes they even had elaborate baths. They also kept fodder for animals and had shops for travellers where they could acquire new supplies. In addition, there could be shops where merchants could dispose of some of their goods.[2]
The word is also rendered as caravansarai or caravansary. The Persian word kārvānsarā is a compound word combining ''kārvān (caravan) with sara (palace, building with enclosed courts), to which the Persian suffix -yi is added. Here "caravan" means a group of traders, pilgrims, or other travelers, engaged in long distance travel.
The caravanserai was also known as a khan (Persian خان,) han in Turkish, funduq in Arabic, and fundaco in Venice.
Loreena McKennitt's album An Ancient Muse features a track titled Caravanserai.
Kitaro has a song called "Caravansary" (Listen: [3])on his album Silk Road IV: Tenjiku/India (1983)[4]. It also appears on the albums Daylight, Moonlight: Live in Yakushiji (2002)[5] and Best of Silk Road (2003)[6]. The term also appears in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Pirates of Penzance.[7]
Santana produced an album by this name on the Columbia label.
 Interior of the Caravanserai of Sa'd al-Saltaneh in Qazvin. |
 Caravanserai of Shah Abbas, now a hotel, in Isfahan. View is from courtyard (sahn). |
 Caravanserai Sangi in Zanjan. |
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 Caravanserai in Shaki, Azerbaijan |
 Abandoned caravanserai in Neyestānak, Iran |
 Khan al-Umdan in Acre, Israel |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Caravansarais |
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Caravanserai". Read more |
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