Gökçedam (also known as ''Hemite'') is a village in the Osmaniye District in

Osmaniye Province Osmaniye Province () is a province in south-central Turkey. It was named Cebel-i Bereket () in the early republic until 1933, when it was incorporated into Adana Province. It was made a province again in 1996. Its area is 3,320 km2, and its p ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Its population is 586 (2022). The village is inhabited by Turkmens. It was the birthplace of the famous Turkish novelist of Kurdish origin

Yaşar Kemal Yaşar Kemal (; born Kemal Sadık Gökçeli; 6 October 1923 – 28 February 2015) was a leading Turkish writer of Kurdish descent, who wrote in Turkish and a human rights activist. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candid ...

. Its most conspicuous feature is a plug of rock in the centre of the village with a ruined castle perched on its summit. The

Ceyhan river The Ceyhan River (historically Pyramos or Pyramus (), Leucosyrus () or Jihun) is a river in Anatolia in the south of Turkey. Course of the river The Ceyhan River (Pyramus) has its source (known as ''Söğütlü Dere'') at a location called '' ...

passes the outskirts of the village and there is a waterside park with a small museum to Yaşar Kemal (not always open).

Etymology

Originally a Roman castle, the settlement was listed as ''Al-ˁAmûdayn'', meaning "two pillars" in Arabic, by

Ibn Khordadbeh Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh (; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking bureaucrat and geographer of Persian descent in the Abbasid Caliphate. He is the aut ...

in 870. In 12th century,

Matthew of Edessa Matthew of Edessa (; late 11th century – 1144) was an Armenian historian in the 12th century from the city of Edessa. Matthew was the superior abbot of Karmir Vank, near the town of Kaysun, east of Marash (Germanicia), the former seat of ...

referred to the place as ''Amuda'' or ''Amudan''. According to

Sevan Nişanyan Sevan Nişanyan (; born 21 December 1956) is a Turkish-Armenian writer, fugitive and lexicographer. Author of a number of books, Nişanyan was awarded the Ayşe Nur Zarakolu Liberty Award of the Turkish Human Rights Association in 2004 for his con ...

, the original Turkish name of the village was borrowed from its Armenian form of ''Amuta''.

References

Villages in Osmaniye District Turkoman settlements in Osmaniye Province {{Osmaniye-geo-stub