Emirzeli Hellenistic tower, Mersin Province, Turkey

Emirzeli, Pergola, Mersin Province, Turkey

Emirzeli (İmirzeli) is a group of ruins in

Mersin Province Mersin Province ( tr, ), formerly İçel Province ( tr, ), is a province in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast between Antalya and Adana. The provincial capital and the biggest city in the province is Mersin, which is composed of fo ...

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 ...

Location

Emirzeli is a part of Karahmetli village in

Erdemli Erdemli is a town and district of Mersin Province in the Mediterranean region of Turkey, west of the city of Mersin. Geography Erdemli is located between the districts of Mezitli (to the east) and Silifke (to the west). In the north, Erdemli i ...

district of Mersin Province at . The road to Emirzeli detaches from Turkish state highway .

Kanlıdivane Kanlıdivane (''ancient'' Canytelis, Greek: Κανυτελής) is an ancient city situated around a big sinkhole in Mersin Province, Turkey. Geography Kanlıdivane is in the rural area of Erdemli district, which is a part of Mersin Province at ...

, an important religious center of the antiquity is also on this road. The distance from Emirzeli to Erdemli is and to

Mersin Mersin (), also known as İçel, is a large city and a port on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey. It is the provincial capital of Mersin Province, Mersin (İçel) Province. It is made up of four municipalities and dis ...

is .

History

The earliest ruins in Emirzeli are from the

Hellenistic era In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

, dating to the 2nd century BC. The settlement was an important town of the Hellenistic kingdom of Olba. After the collapse of the Hellenistic states, the settlement became a part of the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

and

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

s. Later the site seems to have been abandoned. The modern village was founded to the east of the site by a

Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...

tribe.

Ruins

The castle at the north with polygonal masonry was built in the second century BC. Its dimensions are 105 x 60 m² (345 x 200 ft²), but only the tower at the east wall is standing. A

phallus A phallus is a penis (especially when erect), an object that resembles a penis, or a mimetic image of an erect penis. In art history a figure with an erect penis is described as ithyphallic. Any object that symbolically—or, more precisel ...

can be seen on the wall. Some stones of the castle were probably re-used in later buildings. To the south of the castle there is a part of stone pergola from the Roman era. On the south hill there are ruins of three

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its name ...

-style churches, probably from the early Byzantine era (5th or 6th century). The second church is partially standing.

References

{{Mersin Province Hellenistic sites Roman sites in Turkey Erdemli District Archaeological sites in Mersin Province, Turkey Olba territorium