Liman Kalesi
| Liman Kalesi | ||
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 Liman Kalesi from the north, at the highest point of the donjon |
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| Alternative name (s): | Ak Liman, Ağa Limanı | |
| Creation time : | before 1600 | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Construction: | Stone square , breaking stone blocks , Spolienquader | |
| Place: | Boğsak | |
| Geographical location | 36 ° 16 '42 " N , 33 ° 50' 9" E | |
| Height: | 22 m | |
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Liman Kalesi ( Turkish for Hafenburg , also Ak Liman or Ağa Limanı ) is the ruin of a probably Ottoman castle complex in Cilicia in southern Turkey.
location
The castle is located in the Silifke district of the Turkish province of Mersin , about six kilometers southwest of Taşucu , the ancient Holmoi , and 15 kilometers southwest of the district town of Silifke, formerly Seleukia am Kalykadnos . It stands on a headland in Taşucu Bay. An indentation in this headland in the east of the structure formed a small natural harbor. In the bay to the west of the peninsula is the hamlet Boğsak with the offshore island Boğsak Adası , on which the ruins of ancient Nesulion are located. To the northeast of the castle lie the remains of the early Byzantine town of Mylai, 3.5 kilometers away . The D-400 road, which follows the Mediterranean coast , passes west of the peninsula . The military area of a NATO port lies between the road and the castle hill, so the castle is not accessible today.
history
In the 17th century, Ağa Limanı was called a pirate's nest. Cosimo II , Duke of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany , sent six warships in 1613 to rescue Christian hostages from the violence of the pirates entrenched there. A term ante quem for the construction of the facility results from the description of the attachment . Based on the wall technology and structural details, the castle can be dated younger than the Karamanid fortress Mamure Kalesi , but older than the Külliye of Payas in eastern Cilicia. According to Friedrich Hild and Hansgerd Hellenkemper , who traveled to Cilicia in the 1970s and 80s, this results in a construction date in the Ottoman period .
The British captain Francis Beaufort , who explored the Cilician coast on behalf of the Admiralty in the years 1811-12, describes the bay with the castle as the port of Silifke, if Silifke needed a port. The German archaeologists Rudolf Heberdey and Adolf Wilhelm visited the place in 1896 and described the castle as a soberingly boring fortress .
Castle complex
The castle complex has an octagonal, approximately oval floor plan with a diameter from north to south of about 120 meters, from west to east 70 meters. It consists of a donjon in the north, on the top of the hill, and two adjoining courtyards. The rectangular donjon represents the oldest part of the defense system. It is two-storey and was later raised by one story, which can be seen from the walled battlements in the outer wall. The top is a platform surrounded by battlements. The basement had an entrance, which was later walled up, from the northern courtyard, the upper floors were accessible via external stairs.
The two fenced courtyards adjoin the tower in the south and are separated by a wall running roughly west-east. Of the up to 1.60 meter wide walls of the northern, larger courtyard, which adapt to the approximately ten meter sloping terrain, only a few parts in the north have been preserved up to the level of the battlements. On the inside stairs led to the battlements, in the south-west corner the remains of a building with belt arches and a cistern can be seen. A gate was certainly there, it must have been in the area of the breaches, its exact location cannot be clarified. The walls of the south courtyard are almost completely in place, they are up to 3.10 meters thick. The masonry consists of different, mostly hand-cube-shaped stones and rubble stones. Individual larger cuboids are probably Spolia , the origin of which is unclear. There was only access to the southern courtyard from the northern part, in the east of the separating wall. Their battlements faced north so that the south courtyard could be defended independently. Cannon openings are recessed in the outer walls facing the harbor, the battlements were bricked up in a later construction phase.
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. 38-40
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gewond Ališan: Sissouan ou l'Arméno-Cilicie: description geographique et historique / trad. Du texte arménien Venise: Lazar, 1899 p. 388 ( digitized version )
- ^ "When that town had any use for a harbor" see: Sir Francis Beaufort: Karamania or, A brief description of the south coast of Asia-Minor and of the remains of antiquity. With plans, views, & c. collected during a survey of that coast, under the orders of the Lords commissioners of the Admiralty, in the years 1811-1812 . R. Hunter, 1818, pp. 220–222 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- ^ Rudolf Heberdey , Adolf Wilhelm : Journeys in Kilikien 1891-1892 (= memoranda of the Academy of Sciences. Volume 44, 6). Vienna 1896 p. 99.