Yaka Castle
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Yaka Castle (also known as Güdübeş Castle) is a castle ruin in
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 ...
. Although its name is Güdübeş, it is popularly known as Yaka referring to a former village to the east of the castle.


Geography

The castle is to the east of
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 ...
. It can be reached by a short lane from the Turkish state highway D.400 which connects Mersin to Tarsus. Its distance to Mersin is .


History

The castle was built by
Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...
in medieval times and nothing is known about its history.


The plan

The plan of the castle is square. But only two walls (north and west) are partially standing. There are three observation towers. The plan of the one at the south east corner is square, the plan of the one at the east is circular and the plan of the one at north east corner is polygonal.Mersin Ören Yerleri, Mersin Valiliği, İstanbul, 2009, p.31 Because the masonry is so dissimilar to that used by the Armenians and the Byzantines in Cilicia and because parts of this coastal region were occupied by the
Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...
in the late 12th and 13th centuries, it is possible that the site was constructed by the Crusaders.


See also

*
List of Crusader castles This is a list of castles in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, founded or occupied during the Crusades. For crusader castles in Poland and the Baltic states, see Ordensburg. There were two major phases of the deliberate destruction (slig ...


References


External links


For the imagesCarefully documented photographs and plan of Yaka castle
Castles in Mersin Province Ruined castles in Turkey Crusader castles {{crusades-stub