Anchiale () or Anchialeia was a historic city of ancient Cilicia now a part of modern

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 ...

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 ...

. It was inhabited during the

Hellenistic 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 R ...

, Roman, and

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 ...

eras.

History

The main informant about Anchiale was

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

. According to Strabo the city had been constructed by Sardanapalus, the last king of

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

. Strabo further claims that Sardanapalus' tomb is in Anchiale. The city was conquered by

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

just before the battle of Issus.

Geography

The exact location of Anchiale is debatable. Like most historians British captain

Francis Beaufort Sir Francis Beaufort ( ; 27 May 1774 – 17 December 1857) was an Irish hydrographer and naval officer who created the Beaufort cipher and the Beaufort scale. Early life Francis Beaufort was descended from French Protestant Hugu ...

identifies Anchiale with Karaduvar, now a neighbourhood of Mersin at . But he adds that the amount of ruins in Karaduvar is too few for an important ancient city.Sir Francis Beaufort:''Karamanya'', (tr:Ali Neyzi-Doğan Türker), Akdeniz medeniyetleri Araştırma Enstitüsü, , p.265

Ruins

As Beaufort points out there are only a few ruins. There are a

tumulus A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

, several house ruins and an aqueduct from the original city. Bath mosaic is from Roman times.

References

{{Mersin Province Archaeological sites in Mersin Province, Turkey Former populated places in Turkey Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Roman towns and cities in Turkey Populated places of the Byzantine Empire Akdeniz District