Gökkale is an ancient

villa rustica Villa rustica () was the term used by the ancient Romans to denote a farmhouse or villa set in the countryside and with an agricultural section, which applies to the vast majority of Roman villas. In some cases they were at the centre of a large ...

Silifke Silifke ( grc-gre, Σελεύκεια, ''Seleukeia'', la, Seleucia ad Calycadnum) is a town and district in south-central Mersin Province, Turkey, west of the city of Mersin, on the west end of Çukurova. Silifke is near the Mediterranean coast ...

district of

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 ...

Geography

Gökkale at is situated to the northwest of the İmamlı village. Imamlı can be reached via a 15 km (9.3 mi) road from

Atakent Atakent is a town in Mersin Province, Turkey. Geography Atakent is a Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coastal town in Silifke district which itself is a part of Mersin Province. Alluvial plains of Silifke lie in the west of the town and hil ...

which is on Turkish state highway . The - road from İmamlı to Gökkale is not accessible by motor vehicles. But there is a footpath which at times coincides with a

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

. The distance to Silifke 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

Gökkale literally means "Skycastle". But actually it was a residence. Gökkale is situated in a region which was once called

Cilicia Trachaea Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...

(Rugged Cilicia). This region was famous for olive production and there were vast farms during the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

and early

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 ...

eras. Villa rusticas were residences of wealthy farm owners.

Building

The building with orthogonal masonry has six rooms. The windows are supported by vaults. There is a big

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

under the front yard of the building. There are two sarcophagi, the ruins of an olive press and a mill around the building.Mersin Ören Yerleri, Mersin Valiliği, İstanbul, 2009, p.243

Trivia

In 1949 the building was temporarily used as a village school.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gokkale Silifke District Archaeological sites in Mersin Province, Turkey Villa rustica Olba territorium