Country guide
Turkey
Turkey brings together sacred architecture, pilgrimage traditions, and landscapes shaped by memory, ritual, and local devotion.
190 sacred sites across 156 regions. Use the tradition and site-type filters to narrow in.
Atlas summary
Turkey sacred sites overview
Turkey sacred sites include living temples, shrines, churches, pilgrimage places, ruins, and sacred landscapes indexed across the Pilgrim Map atlas.
Use this guide to compare regional clusters, represented traditions, and common site types before opening individual pages for visiting context and deeper background.
| Coverage | 190 sacred sites across 156 regions. |
|---|---|
| Regional clusters | |
| Traditions | |
| Site types | |
| UNESCO heritage | 4 UNESCO-tagged sites in this country guide. |
Showing 145-190 of 190 sites in this country guide
Sagalassos
Burdur, Ağlasun, Turkey
Set at 1,450–1,700 metres in the Taurus Mountains, Sagalassos rose from a Hittite-era predecessor to become Rome's most lavishly honoured city in Pisidia....
Samuha
Sivas, Yıldızeli / Kayalıpınar, Turkey
Samuha was called the 'religious foyer of the Hittite Empire' — the supreme cult center of Šauška, goddess of love and war. A future Hittite king served as her priest here....
Šapinuwa
Çorum, Ortaköy, c. 60 km from Çorum, Turkey
Šapinuwa was a royal Hittite city that may have briefly displaced the capital Hattusa itself, and its archive of 3,000-plus tablets—written in Hittite, Hurrian, Akkadian,...
Sardis
Manisa, Salihli, Turkey
Sardis was the capital of the Lydian Empire, the city where coinage was invented, and a site where Artemis, Cybele, Yahweh, and Christ each in turn held sacred space....
Sardis Temple of Artemis
Turkey
Two surviving Ionic columns rising against the Lydian hills are what remains of the fourth largest temple in the ancient world — a structure that replaced a Lydian...
Sarissa
Sivas, Altınyayla / Başören, Turkey
Sarissa was a royal cult city of the Hittite Empire, dedicated to the supreme Weather God....
Sayburç
Şanlıurfa, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey
Sayburç holds the oldest known narrative artwork in human history: a 3.7-metre stone bench relief depicting a man holding his phallus, flanked by leopards, followed by a...
Sefertepe
Şanlıurfa, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey
Sefertepe is the easternmost site of Turkey's Taş Tepeler Neolithic network, and among the most revelatory for understanding how ancient communities managed the transition...
Selge
Antalya, Köprülü Canyon area, Turkey
Selge occupied a natural fortress at 1,250 metres in the Taurus, overlooking the gorges of what is now Köprülü Canyon National Park....
Side
Manavgat, Antalya, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Side was one of the great port cities of ancient Pamphylia — a dense peninsula-city of temples, theatres, and harbor gates, unique in having its own indigenous language...
Sidyma
Muğla, Seydikemer, Turkey
Sidyma is one of the most evocative unexcavated Lycian cities: approximately 100 tomb monuments — pillar tombs, house tombs, sarcophagi on podia — scattered through the...
Sillyon
Serik / Yanköy, Antalya Province, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Sillyon rises 200 metres above the Pamphylian coastal plain on a clifftop acropolis that was continuously inhabited from the Hittite period through the Ottoman era — a...
Simena
Antalya, Kekova, Turkey
Simena, known today as Kaleköy, is a living village built across a Lycian acropolis above the sunken ruins of the Kekova coast....
Soğmatar
Tektek Mountains, Şanlıurfa, Southeast Anatolia Region, Turkey
In the Tektek Mountains southeast of Şanlıurfa, Soğmatar preserves the physical remains of a Sabian sacred landscape — seven satellite shrines surrounding a central hill...
Stratonikeia
Muğla, Yatağan, Turkey
Stratonikeia was the unique Carian city linked by sacred procession roads to two major divine sanctuaries: the Temple of Hecate at Lagina and the Temple of Zeus...
Sumaki Höyük
Batman, Southeastern Anatolia / Upper Tigris, Turkey
Sumaki Höyük was a Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and Early Pottery Neolithic settlement in the Lower Garzan Valley of Batman Province, occupied from approximately 7300 to...
Sura
Demre / Yuva Koyu area, Antalya, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
On a marshy inlet near ancient Myra, the oracle of Sura operated for centuries without a philosopher or priestess in sight — only fish....
Tapikka
Tokat, Zile, Turkey
Tapikka was the Hittite Empire's northernmost garrison city, positioned on the frontier with the Kaska people....
Taşçı Reliefs
Develi area, Kayseri, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
Carved into cliff faces deep within a narrow gorge at the confluence of two rivers, the Taşçı Reliefs are among the most remote sacred monuments of the Hittite Empire....
Tell Tayinat
Hatay, Amik Valley, c. 25–30 km E/SE of Antakya, Turkey
Tell Tayinat was the royal capital Kunulua of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina — a city of carved lion-flanked temples whose tripartite sacred architecture mirrors, in...
Telmessos Rock Tombs
Muğla, Fethiye, Turkey
The Telmessos rock tombs are Lycian funerary architecture at its most public: carved directly into a limestone cliff above the harbor of modern Fethiye, visible from...
Temple of Apollo and Athena at Side
Manavgat, Antalya, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
The temples of Apollo and Athena at Side occupy the westernmost tip of a Mediterranean peninsula — a harbor sacred area where two Olympian deities once watched over every...
Temple of Apollo, Didyma
Turkey
At Didyma, the ancient world came for answers. Second only to Delphi as a prophetic sanctuary, the Didymaion was one of the largest temples ever built — its 122 Ionic...
Temple of Artemis
İzmir, Selçuk, Turkey
For over a millennium, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was the holiest sanctuary in the ancient Mediterranean world — and the largest building the Greeks ever constructed....
Temple of Athena at Assos
Turkey
Perched at 235 metres above the Aegean Sea on the acropolis of Assos, the Temple of Athena has occupied this promontory since approximately 540 BC — the sole surviving...
Temple of Hecate at Lagina
Muğla, Yatağan, Turkey
Lagina holds the largest and most important sanctuary of Hecate ever built — a site where she was not a supplementary figure in someone else's pantheon but the principal...
Teos
İzmir, Seferihisar, Turkey
Teos was an Ionian coastal city that served as the worldwide headquarters of the Dionysiac Artists guild — the professional association of actors, musicians, and poets who...
Termessos
Antalya, Güllük Dağı, Turkey
Termessos stands on a near-inaccessible summit of Güllük Dağı at almost 1,000 metres, ringed by cliffs that turned back Alexander the Great in 333 BCE....
Theimussa
Turkey
At Üçağız, the ancient village of Theimussa, the line between archaeology and daily life has never fully closed....
Thyatira
Akhisar, Akhisar, Manisa Province, Turkey
Thyatira was the smallest of the seven cities addressed in the Book of Revelation, yet it received the longest of Christ's seven letters — commended for endurance,...
Tilmen Höyük
Gaziantep, İslahiye, Turkey
Tilmen Höyük is a Bronze Age tell mound near Islahiye in southeastern Turkey, set within a Ramsar-protected wetland valley....
Tlos
Muğla, Seydikemer, Turkey
Tlos has been continuously occupied since the Bronze Age and carries the fullest record of Lycian history of any city on the coast — from Hittite texts and the myth of...
Topada Rock Inscription
Acıgöl area, Nevşehir, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
On a natural cliff plateau in the Cappadocian borderlands, King Wasusarma of Tabal carved the most historically detailed royal inscription from Iron Age central Anatolia:...
Tripolis on the Maeander
Denizli, Buldan, Turkey
Tripolis on the Maeander stood at the precise meeting point of three ancient regions — Lydia, Phrygia, and Caria — a location that ancient geography understood as...
Troy
Çanakkale, Tevfikiye; 39°57′23.184″N, 26°14′20.4″E, Turkey
Troy (Troia / Truva) is a multi-period Bronze Age to Roman city mound near Çanakkale, where nine distinct occupation layers span from around 3000 BC to AD 400....
Uzuncaburç
Silifke, Mersin, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Uzuncaburç was once the divine capital of the Olba kingdom, where a priestly dynasty ruled in the name of Zeus Olbios....
Van Fortress
Van city edge, Turkey
Van Fortress (Tushpa) was the sacred capital of the Urartian Kingdom from the 9th to 6th centuries BCE — a massive conglomerate rock rising from the shore of Lake Van...
Xanthos
Antalya, Kınık, Turkey
Xanthos was the greatest city of Lycia, an ancient Anatolian civilization whose most distinctive expression was the pillar tomb: the dead raised on stone columns above the...
Yalburt Pool Monument
Ilgın area, Konya, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
At 1,300 metres in the highland meadows of western Konya, a rectangular basin of inscribed limestone blocks marks the place where a Hittite king bound his military...
Yazılıkaya
Çorum, 2 km NE of Boğazkale; 40°01′27.80″N, 34°38′15.80″E, Turkey
Yazılıkaya is the largest known open-air Hittite sanctuary, located 2 km northeast of Hattusha in central Turkey....
Yesemek
Gaziantep, İslahiye, Turkey
Yesemek is an ancient quarry and sculpture workshop in southern Turkey where the Hittite Empire produced sacred guardian figures — sphinxes, lions, and mountain gods —...
Yeşilova Höyük
İzmir, Western Anatolia / Aegean, Turkey
Yeşilova Höyük is a Neolithic and Chalcolithic tell mound in Bornova, İzmir, occupied from around 6500 to 4000 BC....
Zerzevan Castle
Çınar / Demirölçek, Diyarbakır, Southeast Anatolia Region, Turkey
Zerzevan Castle, on Turkey's UNESCO Tentative List, holds one of the world's best-preserved Mithraea — a rock-cut underground chamber where Roman frontier soldiers enacted...
Zeugma
Nizip / Belkıs, Gaziantep, Southeast Anatolia Region, Turkey
Zeugma stood for two millennia where the Euphrates divided the Greek and Persian worlds....
Zincirli
Gaziantep, Nurdağı / Zincirli, Turkey
Zincirli Höyük is the site of ancient Sam'al, a Neo-Hittite and Aramaean city-state in southeastern Turkey....
Zindan Cave, Yazılı Canyon
Aksu, Aksu / Sütçüler, Isparta Province, Turkey
Zindan Cave and Yazılı Canyon are two distinct locations roughly 35-40 km apart in Isparta Province, treated here as sequential stops on the same ancient road and modern...
Showing 145-190 of 190 sites
Previous pageKey questions
Turkey sacred-site questions
- What sacred sites can I explore in Turkey?
- Pilgrim Map lists sacred places in Turkey across living worship sites, heritage landmarks, pilgrimage destinations, and culturally significant landscapes. The current guide lists 190 sites organized by region, tradition, and site type.
- Which traditions are represented in Turkey?
- The most represented traditions include Ancient, Multi-tradition, Hellenistic Greek, Prehistoric, Phrygian, Christianity.
- How should I plan a sacred-site visit in Turkey?
- Start with regional clusters, compare nearby places on the map, then open individual site pages for coordinates, etiquette, and sacred context where available.
- Can I view Turkey sacred sites on a map?
- Yes. Switch to map view to compare geographic clusters, then open individual site pages for coordinates, visiting context, and related places.