Barakçıkale
Coordinates: 36 ° 28 ′ 44.1 ″ N , 34 ° 0 ′ 1.9 ″ E
Barakçıkale , also Barakçıkalesi , refers to a complex of ruins made up of several buildings in the rough Cilicia . The buildings were built in the Hellenistic to Roman - early Byzantine times. They probably represent the remains of an agricultural homestead, which may also have had military importance.
location
Barakçıkale is located southeast of İmamlı in the Silifke district of the Turkish province of Mersin . The buildings stand on the west side of the Yenibahçe Deresi valley , which stretches north from the coastal town of Atakent , the ancient Korasion , through the mountainous hinterland, on a wide rock spur high above the gorge. To the south of this, the modern road leads in narrow, steep serpentines through the valley, which connects the two roads via the village of Yenibahçe , which is located in the valley floor , which lead west and east of the gorge from the Mediterranean coast to Uzuncaburç with the ancient cities of Olba and Diokaisareia . Both roughly correspond to ancient streets. On the opposite east side of the gorge are the ruins of Tekkadın and Paslı . The building owes its Turkish name Kale (castle) to its exposed location above the Yenibahçe valley .
construction
The facility was clearly visible in at least two phases. The origin was the two Heldistic buildings designated by Held and Hellenkemper as building A and B. Building A in the north, a two-room tower, was probably the oldest part with Building B, which is 2.60 meters to the west. Building B was a square, multi-storey tower with internal dimensions of 5.43 × 5.45 meters. A and B were built from embossed blocks. Building C, on the south of it on the slope, consisted of smoothed cuboids. It was divided into at least three rectangular rooms. All buildings consisted of double-walled masonry with wall thicknesses between 0.90 and 1.25 meters. The emergence of A and B in the 3rd century, with C in the 1st century BC. Dated. Certain building elements such as slotted windows are characteristic of the architecture of the Olbian priestly state. Olbic symbols are not present, but may have been lost in the later destruction.
In the 1st century before or after the birth of Christ, the complex was destroyed, perhaps by an earthquake, and lay in ruins for some time. Around the middle of the Imperial Era , the complex was rebuilt. While the existing remains of the polygonal blocks remained, the newly rising masonry was built in significantly smaller stones in layers between 16 and 18 centimeters. The wall thickness was only 0.58 meters. Buildings A and B were built with at least three storeys and had high rectangular arched windows; a new section with belt arches was connected to building B in the north . The structure of building C essentially remained the same. The entire system has now been combined into an enclosed complex by means of additional walls with doors. The buildings remained in use until the early Byzantine period.
Friedrich Hild and Hansgerd Hellenkemper , who visited the place in the 1980s, considered the complex to be a place to live with an agricultural or forestry basis. However, no oil presses or other agricultural equipment could be detected. The Turkish archaeologist Serra Durugönül , who together with her German colleague Hanns Gabelmann researched and measured the towers in Rough Cilicia in 1995 , considers a military use to be likely. There is also no associated settlement, which is why it is based on a purely garrison location.
literature
- Hansgerd Hellenkemper, Friedrich Hild: New research in Kilikien. Publications of the commission for the Tabula Imperii Byzantini Volume 4. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-7001-0771-4 , pp. 58-60.
- Friedrich Hild, Hansgerd Hellenkemper: Kilikien and Isaurien. Tabula Imperii Byzantini Volume 5. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7001-1811-2 , p. 210.
- Serra Durugönül: towers and settlements in the Rough Cilicia. Asia Minor Studies Volume 28. Rudolf Habelt, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-7749-2840-1 , pp. 106-107.
