![Aksu Çayı](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Aksu_%C3%87ay%C4%B1.jpg)
The Aksu (
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
name in
Hittite: 𒁉𒋻𒀀𒅀, ''Kaštaraya'',
ancient
Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian language, Sumerian c ...
name in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
Κέστρoς, ''Kestros''), is a river in
Antalya Province
Antalya Province ( tr, ) is located on the Mediterranean coast of south-west Turkey, between the Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea.
Antalya Province is the centre of Turkey's tourism industry, attracting 30% of foreign tourists visit ...
(southwestern
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
), which rises in the mountains of
Toros
Toros may refer to:
Sports
*Rio Grande Valley FC Toros, an American soccer team in Edinburg, Texas
* Austin Toros (2005-2014) a minor league basketball team from Austin, Texas
*Western District Toros, a soccer club from Adelaide, South Australia
...
. The course of the Aksu is between the
Düden to the west and of the
Köprüçay to the east.
History
A treaty between the
Hittite Great King
Tudhaliya IV Tudhaliya is the name of several Hittite kings:
*Tudhaliya (also Tudhaliya I) is a hypothetic pre-Empire king of the Hittites. He would have reigned in the late 17th century BC ( short chronology). Forlanini (1993) conjectures that this king corres ...
and his vassal, the king of
Tarhuntassa, defined the latter's western border at the "Kastaraya River", near "Parha". Parha is likely the future
Perga
Perga or Perge ( Hittite: ''Parha'', el, Πέργη ''Perge'', tr, Perge) was originally an ancient Lycian settlement that later became a Greek city in Pamphylia. It was the capital of the Roman province of Pamphylia Secunda, now located in ...
.
As Kestros, the river is mentioned by
Pomponius Mela
Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45.
His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less ...
as navigable, as far upriver as Perga, 60
stadia
Stadia may refer to:
* One of the plurals of stadium, along with "stadiums"
* The plural of stadion, an ancient Greek unit of distance, which equals to 600 Greek feet (''podes'').
* Stadia (Caria), a town of ancient Caria, now in Turkey
* Stadi ...
(about ) from its mouth, according to
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 "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
. It silted up over the Byzantine era, and Perga declined as a result.
Today
The Aksu is wide at its mouth, and deep within the bar, which extends across the mouth, and so shallow in places in its delta as to be impassable to boats that draw more than of water. The swell from the sea meeting the stream generally produces a violent surf.
At its headwaters is the
Kovada Lake and just below that the
Karacaören Dam Karacaören (literally "roe deer ruins" in Turkish) may refer to several places:
Dams in Turkey
* Karacaören-1 Dam
* Karacaören-2 Dam
Places in Turkey
* Karacaören, Aksaray, a village in the district of Aksaray, Aksaray Province
* Karacaö ...
reservoir.
References
*
Smith, William (editor); ''
Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography
The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'' is the last in a series of classical dictionaries edited by the English scholar William Smith (1813–1893), following ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities'' and the ''Dictionary of Gr ...
''
"Cestrus" London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, (1854)
Glover, Clare P, Robertson, Alastair F (March 1998) "Role of regional extension and uplift in the Plio-Pleistocene evolution of the Aksu Basin, SW Turkey" ''Journal of the Geological Society'' 155(2): pp. 365-387Çapraz, Soner and Arslan, Naime (2005) "The Oligochaeta (Annelida) Fauna of Aksu Stream (Antalya)" ''Turkish Journal of Zoology'' 29: pp. 229-236*Wildekamp, R.H. (1997) "First record of the eastern Asiatic gobionid fish ''Pseudorasbora parva'' from the Asiatic part of Turkey" ''Journal of Fish Biology'' 51(4): pp. 858–861
Rivers of Turkey
Landforms of Antalya Province
{{Turkey-river-stub