Karakabaklı is an archaeological site in

Mersin Province Mersin Province ( tr, ), formerly İçel Province ( tr, ), is a province in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast between Antalya and Adana. The provincial capital and the biggest city in the province is Mersin, which is composed of f ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

Geography

Karakabaklı is situated next to Karadedeli village (now a remote neighborhood of Atakent) in the rural area of

Silifke Silifke ( grc-gre, Σελεύκεια, ''Seleukeia'', la, Seleucia ad Calycadnum) is a town and district in south-central Mersin Province, Turkey, west of the city of Mersin, on the west end of Çukurova. Silifke is near the Mediterranean co ...

district at . In the antiquity this region was called

Cilicia Trachaea Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...

(Rugged Cilicia). Karakabaklı is to the east of Silifke and to the north of Turkish state highway . It can be reached via a road from Atakent which is on D-400. The villa rustica Sinekkale is to north of Karakabaklı. The distance from Karakabaklı to Silifke is and to Mersin is .

History

The settlement dates back to

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

age. But it was rebuilt and inhabited during the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

and early

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

ages. It was probably abandoned during the Arab–Byzantine wars in the 7th and 8th centuries. Neither Hellenistic nor the Roman name of the settlement is known. Karakabaklı is a Turkish name.

Ruins

According to Professor

Semavi Eyice Mustafa Semavi Eyice (9 December 1922 in Istanbul, Turkey – 28 May 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey) was a Turkish art historian and archaeologist, who specialised in the study of Byzantine and Ottoman art in Istanbul. Professor Eyice is widely re ...

who has studied on the ruins there are many houses and seven of them are in relatively good condition. Four of them are one-storey and three of them are two-storey houses. The building material is limestone. Eyice notes that the percentage of standing buildings is higher in Karakabaklı than in most other ancient settlements. The plans of the houses are not standard and they probably belonged to people of different economic status. There are also, basilicas, a

tetrapylon A tetrapylon ( el, τετράπυλον, "four gates"), plural ''tetrapyla'', known in Latin as a ''quadrifrons'' (literally "four fronts") is a type of ancient Roman monument of cubic shape, with a gate on each of the four sides, generally built ...

, cisterns and a partially unearthed Roman road.İstanbul University journal
/ref> The settlement is included in the official list of

Archaeological sites An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and ...

of Turkey.List published by the ministry of Culture and Tourism (item no 67)
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karakabakli Former populated places in Turkey Silifke District Archaeological sites in Mersin Province, Turkey Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Olba territorium