Karakabaklı is an archaeological site in

Mersin Province Mersin Province (), formerly İçel Province (), is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality in southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast between Antalya Province, A ...

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 ...

Geography

Karakabaklı is situated next to Karadedeli village (now a remote neighborhood of Atakent) in the rural area of

Silifke Silifke is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Mersin Province, Mersin Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,692 km2, and its population is 132,665 (2022). It is west of the city of Mersin, on the west end of the Çukurova plain. ...

district. In the antiquity this region was called

Cilicia Trachaea Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

(Rugged Cilicia). Karakabaklı is to the east of Silifke and to the north of Turkish state highway D.400. It can be reached via a road from

Atakent Atakent is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Silifke, Mersin Province, Turkey. Its population is 8,195 (2022). Before the 2013 reorganisation, it was a town (''belde''). Geography Atakent is a Mediterranean coastal town. A ...

which is on D-400. The villa rustica

Sinekkale Sinekkale (literally "The castle of flies") is an archaeological site where the architectural remains of a large villa rustica have been identified in Turkey. The original name is unknown. Location Sinekkale is located in the rural area of Silif ...

is to north of Karakabaklı. The distance from Karakabaklı to Silifke is and to

Mersin Mersin () is a large city and port on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of Mediterranean Region, Turkey, southern Turkey. It is the provincial capital of the Mersin Province (formerly İçel). It is made up of four district governorates ...

is .

History

The settlement dates back to

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

age. But it was rebuilt and inhabited during 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 Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

and early

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

ages. It was probably abandoned during the

Arab–Byzantine wars The Arab–Byzantine wars or Muslim–Byzantine wars were a series of wars from the 7th to 11th centuries between multiple Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire. The Muslim Arab Caliphates conquered large parts of the Christian Byzantine empir ...

in the 7th and 8th centuries. Neither Hellenistic nor the Roman name of the settlement is known. Karakabaklı is a Turkish name.

Ruins

According to Professor

Semavi Eyice Mustafa Semavi Eyice (9 December 1922 in Istanbul, Turkey – 28 May 2018 in Istanbul, Turkey) was a Turkish art historian and archaeologist, who specialised in the study of Byzantine and Ottoman art in Istanbul. Professor Eyice is widely rega ...

who has studied on the ruins there are many houses and seven of them are in relatively good condition. Four of them are one-storey and three of them are two-storey houses. The building material is limestone. Eyice notes that the percentage of standing buildings is higher in Karakabaklı than in most other ancient settlements. The plans of the houses are not standard and they probably belonged to people of different economic status. There are also, basilicas, a

tetrapylon A tetrapylon (plural tetrapyla; ; , also used in English) is a rectangular form of monument with arched passages in two directions, at right angles, generally built on a Crossroads (culture), crossroads. They appear in ancient Roman architecture ...

, cisterns and a partially unearthed Roman road.İstanbul University journal
/ref> The settlement is included in the official list of

Archaeological sites An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

of Turkey.List published by the ministry of Culture and Tourism (item no 67)
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karakabakli Former populated places in Turkey Silifke District Archaeological sites in Mersin Province, Turkey Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey Olba territorium