Evliya Çelebi was an Ottoman explorer who spent 40 years traveling on horseback throughout the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands. Çelebi, whose full name was Derviş Mehmed Zilli, was born in Unkapanı neighborhood in Istanbul and lived from 1611 to 1682.
Evliya set out on a journey to assemble a complete description of the Ottoman Empire and its neighbors and to provide a complete record of his travels as a first-person narrative. The product of these travel notes is the famous Seyâhatnâme which comprises 2 volumes. The first volume about Istanbul and the second about Egypt.
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