Kırkkaşık Bedesten is one of Tarsus’s most distinctive Ottoman-era commercial buildings. İbrahim Bey, son of Piri Paşa of the Ramadanid principality, commissioned it in 1579. The Turkish Culture Portal explains that it first served charitable and educational functions as an imaret and madrasa before becoming a covered bazaar after the establishment of the Republic.
The name means “Forty Spoons,” referring to spoon-like ornaments on the exterior rather than a literal inventory of forty shops. The building was also known as the White Bazaar. Its position beside Tarsus Ulu Camii places commerce, religion and public welfare within the same historic quarter.