Asarkale is a ruined fortress 30 km southwest of the

Bafra Bafra is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Samsun Province, Turkey. Covering about 1,500 km2, and with over 140,000 inhabitants it is a settlement located from the Black Sea, in the fertile Kızılırmak Delta. The Bafra Pl ...

district of

Samsun Province Samsun Province () is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Its area is 9,725 km2, and its population is 1,368,488 (2022). Its adjacent provinces are Sinop on the northwest, Çorum on the west, Amasy ...

in northern Turkey, and there are nearby rock tombs. One of the rock tombs is next to the reservoir of the Derbent Dam on the

Kızılırmak River The Kızılırmak (, Turkish language, Turkish for "Red River"), once known as the Halys River () and Alis River, is the longest river flowing entirely within Turkey. It is a source of hydroelectric power and is not used for navigation. Geogra ...

. Asarkale is on a large rock. It is reached by climbing the stairs through a formerly secret tunnel. An excavation was started in 2024 by

Ondokuz Mayıs University Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMU) is a major state university founded in 1975 in Samsun, Turkey. The university bears the name “19 May”, which marks the date when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, came to Samsun in or ...

Seljuk Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * S ...

and Ottoman artefacts have been found, and it is thought that the fortress was used for defense during the

Hellenistic Age In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roma ...

References

{{reflist Samsun Province Rock-cut tombs Archaeological sites of classical Anatolia