Akkale (literally "white castle") is the popular name given to ruins of a building complex in Kumkuyu town of

Erdemli Erdemli is a municipality and district of Mersin Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,279 km2, and its population is 151,928 (2022). It is west of the city of Mersin. Geography Erdemli is located between the districts of Mezitli (to the east) a ...

district,

Mersin Province Mersin Province (), formerly İçel Province (), is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast between Antalya Province, A ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

Geography

Akkale (also called ''Tırtar Akkale'' where ''Tırtar'' is the former name of Kumkuyu) is situated to south west of Kumkuyu. Its distance to Erdemli is and to

Mersin Mersin () is a large city and port on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of Mediterranean Region, Turkey, southern Turkey. It is the provincial capital of the Mersin Province (formerly İçel). It is made up of four district governorates ...

is . The buildings are accessible by a short lane from the Turkish state highway D.400. The distance to

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

coast is about .

History

The original name of the site is not known. But it was a port administration complex of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

built in the 4th century. However, according to Turkish archaeologist

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 rega ...

the main building may be the palace of

Archelaus of Cappadocia Archelaus (; fl. 1st century BC and 1st century, died 17 AD) was a Roman client prince and the last king of Cappadocia. He was also husband of Pythodorida, Queen regnant of Pontus. Family and early life Archelaus was a Cappadocian Greek no ...

who lived in the first century and was known to spend summers in

Cilicia Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

. A part of the buildings were repaired during the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

era probably after the great earthquakes of the 6th century.

Technical details

Although the popular name ''Akkale'' means "White castle", the complex was not a castle, but a small, wealthy settlement. It consists of the ruins of the main building, which was once five stories in height, a large cistern, and numerous other constructions. The five-story building is traditionally called a palace (), for it may have been used both as the office and the lodging building of the governor. The

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

s which are on all sides of the building indicate the existence of a now completely demolished balcony which circumscribed the building. The main staircase of the building was a spiral staircase. A small building is assumed to be the treasury office where documents may have been kept in the basement. The cistern is one of the biggest cisterns in Cilicia with over . It was used to sell water to ships. Within this complex is a free-standing rectangular structure which has one of the region’s few extant domes on pendentives and was thought to be a church. However, in 1989 an archaeological study was published with a plan, which describes the site as a mausoleum. This cruciform building was constructed with beautifully cuts blocks of limestone masonry.The survey was conducted under the auspices of the University of California at Berkele

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References

{{Mersin Province Ruins in Turkey Ancient Roman buildings and structures in Turkey Erdemli District Cisterns in Mersin Province Reservoirs in Turkey Archaeological sites in Mersin Province, Turkey Olba territorium