Tokmar Kalesi
| Tokmar Kalesi | ||
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 Tokmar Kalesi from the northeast |
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| Alternative name (s): | Castellum Novum, Norpert | |
| Creation time : | End of the 12th century | |
| Castle type : | Hilltop castle | |
| Conservation status: | ruin | |
| Standing position : | Noble | |
| Construction: | Boss cuboid | |
| Place: | Akdere | |
| Geographical location | 36 ° 15 '23 " N , 33 ° 46' 14" E | |
| Height: | 400 m | |
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Tokmar Kalesi (also Castellum Novum) is a medieval castle ruin in the Silifke district of the Turkish province of Mersin .
location
From the coastal road D-400 from Silifke to Antalya , about 25 kilometers behind Taşucu, a road branches off to the right to the west, which serpentines up the mountain. After a further five kilometers, the castle ruins are on the left, about 150 meters away, to which a drivable path leads. Tokmar Kalesi is located at an altitude of about 400 meters on a spur that breaks off vertically to the southeast, the Kale Tepesi, about two kilometers northwest of the municipality of Akdere , 25 kilometers southwest of the district town. To the north, the mountain spur joins the Akçalı Dağları ridge as a saddle . The castle is mentioned in the Portolan Rizo of 1490 as a landmark under the name lo chastel chamandrachi (probably about the castle to the port) . In Richard Kiepert's map of Asia Minor it is entered as Palaea Castle , which indicates that it belongs to the ancient port of Palaiai, four kilometers to the east. This was in a shallow bay near what is now known as Barbaros Köyü or Tahta Limanı and is visible from Tokmar Kalesi.
history
The castle can only be dated to the end of the 12th century on the basis of architectural comparisons. It can therefore be classified in a group of small Armenian castles, whose model is Yılankale in the flat Cilicia . Tokmar Kalesi is the westernmost specimen of this type. Presumably it is identical to Norpert Castle (New Castle) , which is mentioned in 1199 and 1210 as the property of Sevasdios Heri. In 1210 the Armenian King Leon II handed over the fortress under the name Castellum Novum together with the town and citadel of Silifke to the Johanniter . In return, he received armed support from 400 knights in the fight against the Seljuks and an annual payment. While Silifke Kalesi was returned to the Armenians in 1226, nothing is known about the further fate of Norpert. Hansgerd Hellenkemper and Friedrich Hild , who visited the castle on their trip to Cilicia in the early 1980s, conclude from the extent and interior development that it is an aristocratic castle that ruled the area west of Seleukia on the Kalykadnos (Silifke) to the Gulf of Ovacık (today Yeşilovacık) .
Castle complex
The polygonal enclosure wall follows the conditions of the terrain and encloses an area of around 50 × 70 meters. Four semicircular bastions have been preserved on the north side ; large parts of the curtains in between have collapsed or are still in use. The curtains have a wall thickness of 1.50 meters and, like the bastions, are double-walled with bosses made of limestone . Only small traces of the walkways can be seen, battlements and parapets have crashed. There are simple shooting slots on the upper floors of the bastions. On the east side, the remains of a ramp-like kennel can be seen, of whose outer walls only the foundations have been preserved. The main gate front and the gate there have also passed. In the southeastern part of the interior remains of a residential building can be seen, other buildings that used to exist there have been destroyed.
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 pp. 35–36 ISBN 3700107714
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Adrian J. Boas: Archeology of Military Orders: A Survey of the Urban Centers, Rural ... Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 0-415-29980-2 , pp. 254 ( limited preview in Google Book search).