Story
The story of Gaziantep Castle
Long before it was a castle, this mound in the heart of Gaziantep was a Hittite lookout point. The Romans expanded it into a main castle in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, and Byzantine Emperor Justinian I enlarged and renovated it again between AD 527 and 565. Walk the round circuit and you cover 1,200 metres of stone walls, guarded by 12 bastions.
The castle was reshaped under the Ayyubids in the 12th and 13th centuries and by the Ottomans, and it played an important role in the Turkish War of Independence. Today it houses the Gaziantep Defence and Heroism Panoramic Museum, where a 45-minute documentary tells how the city was defended against French forces.
On 6 February 2023, two consecutive earthquakes brought down some of its eastern and southern bastions and badly damaged its walls and railings; restoration began in September 2023.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Gaziantep
- RumkaleRumkale is a ruined fortress on the Euphrates, located in the province of Gaziantep and 50 km west of Şanlıurfa.
- Emine Gogus Culinary MuseumThe Emine Göğüş Culinary Museum, in a restored mansion south of the castle, introduces Gaziantep's famous cuisine with photos, historic kitchen tools and scenes of traditional cooking.
- Gaziantep Bath MuseumThe Bath Museum occupies the Paşa Hamamı, built in 1577 by Lala Mustafa Paşa and restored in 2015. Unlike classic baths, Gaziantep's hammams lie below street level.
- Zeugma Mosaic MuseumZeugma Mosaic Museum, in the city of Gaziantep, Turkey, is the biggest mosaic museum in the world, containing 1700 m2 of mosaics.
- Tahmis CoffeehouseTahmis Coffeehouse is a historic coffeehouse founded in 1635 to support the Mevlevi lodge. It survived two great fires in 1901 and 1903 and still serves traditional coffee.
- ZeugmaZeugma was an ancient Hellenistic era Greek and then Roman city of Commagene; located in modern Gaziantep Province, Turkey. It was named for the bridge of boats, or zeugma, that crossed the Euphrates at that location.