Ancient sacred sites in Turkey

Acemhöyük

Aksaray, Turkey

Acemhöyük is one of Central Anatolia's great Bronze Age palatial sites: two monumental palace complexes, a probable bull cult, and a possible identification with...

Adamkayalar

Mersin, Turkey

In a narrow canyon in the Cilician Taurus foothills, nine niches have been cut into the rock face and filled with carved figures — eleven men, four women, two children, a...

Alabanda

Aydın, Turkey

Alabanda is a quiet, largely unexcavated Carian city in the hills above the Çine plain, formally declared inviolable sacred territory by the ancient Chrysaorian League....

Alacahöyük

Çorum, Turkey

Alacahöyük holds the earliest expression of Anatolian sacred kingship: royal tombs from 2500 BCE packed with bronze sun disks and bull standards, later crowned by a...

Alalakh

Hatay, Turkey

Alalakh was a Bronze Age city at the crossroads of Amorite, Hurrian, Mitanni, Hittite, and Aegean worlds — destroyed and rebuilt at least eighteen times over eight...

Alinda

Aydın, Turkey

Alinda stands on a twin-acropolis hill above the town of Karpuzlu in Caria, commanding a view across one of Anatolia's most fertile plains....

Alişar Höyük

Yozgat, Turkey

Alişar Höyük is the stratigraphic foundation of Central Anatolian archaeology. When the Oriental Institute of Chicago excavated it systematically in 1927–1932, they...

Altıntepe

Erzincan, Turkey

Altıntepe — 'golden hill' — rises 60 metres above the Upper Euphrates on the Erzincan plain, its volcanic form carrying a Tower-temple to Haldi, a columned audience hall,...

Amisos Hill

Samsun, Turkey

Amisos Hill rises above Samsun on the Turkish Black Sea coast, its summit concealing the golden burial chambers of the Pontus Kingdom elite....

Antiphellos

Antalya, Turkey

Antiphellos was a Lycian harbor city whose ancient necropolis of rock-cut tombs and sarcophagi has never been separated from daily life....

Aperlai

Antalya, Turkey

Aperlai was a Lycian harbor city that produced Tyrian purple — the most valuable dye of antiquity, reserved for emperors and gods — and whose fortification walls now...

Ariassus

Antalya, Turkey

Ariassus is a ruined Pisidian and Roman city on a steep hillside above the Döşemealtı district of Antalya, founded in the Hellenistic period and flourishing through the...

Arsameia

Adıyaman, Turkey

Arsameia was the summer capital of the Kingdom of Commagene and the hierothesion — sacred burial precinct — of King Mithridates I Kallinikos, built by his son Antiochos I....

Arslantepe

Malatya, Turkey

Arslantepe is a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Malatya that preserves the oldest known palace on earth and the world's earliest swords....

Arykanda

Antalya, Turkey

Arykanda rises in five terraces against a near-vertical mountain cliff at roughly 1,000 meters in the Taurus range....

Asarkal Rock Tombs

Samsun, Turkey

Above the ancient Halys River — the Kızılırmak — three Hellenistic rock tombs face outward from a high cliff above the Altınkaya reservoir....

Aspendos

Antalya, Turkey

Aspendos is the site of the most intact Roman theatre on earth — its full stage building standing two stories high as it was constructed in the 2nd–3rd century CE, still...

Bin Tepe

Manisa, Turkey

Bin Tepe is the royal tumulus cemetery of the Lydian Mermnad dynasty, located on a ridge above Marmara Lake 8 km north of Sardis....

Burunkaya Inscription

Aksaray, Turkey

On a rock outcrop near Aksaray, King Hartapu once declared his divine mandate in Luwian hieroglyphs: 'Great King Hartapu, beloved of the Storm-God......

Çavuştepe

Van, Turkey

A two-tiered royal fortress on a natural ridge southeast of Van, Çavuştepe was built by Sarduri II in the 8th century BC as both military stronghold and sacred precinct....

Claros

İzmir, Turkey

At Claros, on the Ionian coast of what is now western Turkey, a male priest descended each night into a vaulted underground chamber, drank from a sacred spring, and...

Colophon

İzmir, Turkey

Colophon was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League, founded at the end of the second millennium BCE on the hills above the Aegean coast of what is now western...

Cremna

Burdur, Turkey

Cremna sits at the edge of a promontory above the Aksu Valley in Burdur Province, its name derived from the Greek word for cliff....

Cyaneae

Antalya, Turkey

Cyaneae stands on a hill above the village of Yavu in western Lycia, its streets lined with more sarcophagi than any other known Lycian city....

Cyme

İzmir, Turkey

Cyme was the largest and most influential of the twelve Aeolian cities of Asia Minor — a harbor metropolis whose Apollo oracle was consulted in moments of civic crisis,...

Cyzicus

Balıkesir, Turkey

Cyzicus was once one of the most powerful and sacred cities of the ancient world — hosting the Temple of Hadrian, the largest Roman sacred structure ever built....

Eflatunpınar

Konya, Turkey

Built by a Hittite Great King as a monument to divine water, Eflatunpınar has kept faith with its original purpose for thirty-two centuries: the spring still flows, the...

Elaiussa Sebaste

Mersin, Turkey

Elaiussa Sebaste began on a small island in the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean's Cilician coast and grew outward until it connected to the mainland by a built...

Erythrai

İzmir, Turkey

Erythrai stood at the intersection of Ionian, Phoenician, and proto-Christian sacred traditions: home to the Erythraean Sibyl, one of antiquity's most celebrated oracular...

Euromos

Muğla, Turkey

Euromos preserves one of the most complete Corinthian temples in Asia Minor — sixteen columns of the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos still standing in an ancient olive grove....

Fasıllar Monument

Konya, Turkey

On an open hillside near Beyşehir in Konya Province, an 8-meter basalt block carries the most ambitious Hittite religious sculpture ever attempted: the storm god...

Fıraktın Relief

Kayseri, Turkey

Carved into a riverside boulder in a Taurus mountain valley fifty kilometers south of Kayseri, the Fıraktın relief depicts Hittite Great King Hattusili III pouring water...

Gavurkale

Ankara, Turkey

Rising sixty meters above a stream valley sixty kilometers southwest of Ankara, Gavurkale carries the carved images of three deities — a seated goddess and two...

Gökbez Relief

Niğde, Turkey

In a courtyard in Gökbez village, Niğde Province, a massive stone block lies on its side against a house wall — a Neo-Hittite storm god who has been horizontal for...

Gordion

Eskişehir, Turkey

The Phrygian capital that gave the world its most enduring metaphor for intractable problems — and the young conqueror who resolved it with a sword blow....

Hanyeri Relief

Adana, Turkey

Carved four meters above a mountain road at the Gezbeli Pass in the Taurus Mountains, the Hanyeri relief names the divine owner of the mountain it occupies: Sharruma,...

Hattusha

Çorum, Turkey

Hattusha was the capital of the Hittite Empire, a Bronze Age superpower that rivaled Egypt and Babylon and signed the world's oldest surviving peace treaty....

Hattusha Lion Gate

Part of Hattusha

Çorum, Turkey

The Lion Gate of Hattusa stands at the high southwestern point of a six-kilometre fortification wall surrounding what was once the Bronze Age world's largest capital — the...

Hemite Relief

Osmaniye, Turkey

On the north bank of the Ceyhan River in Osmaniye Province, a 13th-century BC Hittite warrior-prince gazes outward from the cliff face above the water....

İmamkullu Relief

Kayseri, Turkey

On the flank of Bey Dağı in Kayseri's Tomarza district, a trachyte boulder carries the most dynamic image in Hittite rock art: the Thunder God Teshub riding his chariot...

İvriz Monuments

Konya, Turkey

At a cliff face above a perennial spring in the Konya foothills, the Neo-Hittite king Warpalawa had himself carved in an act of worship before Tarhunzas — the storm and...

Kaman-Kalehöyük

Kırşehir, Turkey

Kaman-Kalehöyük holds over 40 layers of human occupation spanning 9,000 years — from the Chalcolithic through the Ottoman period — in central Anatolia....

Karabel Relief

İzmir, Turkey

A rock relief carved three millennia ago by a Hittite vassal king watches over the Karabel Pass in the hills east of İzmir....

Karakuş Tumulus

Adıyaman, Turkey

Karakuş Tumulus is an artificial mound 30 metres high and 150 metres across, built c....

Karasu Relief

Gaziantep, Turkey

On a cliff face two hundred meters above the Karasu River near its meeting with the Euphrates, the Karasu Relief shows a deity standing on a stag: Runtiya, the...

Karatepe-Aslantaş

Osmaniye, Turkey

Karatepe-Aslantaş is a late Iron Age fortress-city in the Taurus Mountains whose bilingual Phoenician-Luwian inscription unlocked the decipherment of Anatolian hieroglyphs...

Kaunos Tomb of the Kings

Muğla, Turkey

Cut directly into the limestone face of Balıklar Mountain, the temple tombs of Kaunos have watched the Dalyan River delta for more than two millennia....

Kerkenes Dağ

Yozgat, Turkey

Kerkenes Dağ is an Iron Age city that lasted barely a century before Croesus burned it to the ground and left it sealed in fire....