Karatas
General Information
District: Adana, State: Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Area: 922 km²
Languages Spoken: Turkish
Long Distance Code: (+90) 0322
Best Time to Visit: May to August
International Access: Adana Sakirpasa Airport (ADA)Description
History The area has been inhabited from at least Hittite times and probably earlier. It was later part of the Assyrian province of Quwê (Que). By the time of the Greeks, who knew the city as Megarsos/Magarso, there was a port here at the mouth of the navigable Pyramos, supplying an important military and trading route into the plain of Cilicia, and also providing access to the sea for the river towns, like Mallus. In 333 BCE, just before the battle of Issus, Alexander the Great sacrificed here at a temple that, by interpretatio graeca, he took to be of Athena; the "Athena of Magarsos" who appears on Hellenistic coins has been diagnosed, from her pose and the attributes that surround her, to have Mesopotamian connections. Robin Lane Fox recognizes the origin of the cult site in the victories of Sennacherib, who instituted the shrine in 696 BCE following a sea battle with Greeks off the mouth of the river; he dedicated it to his martial goddess, Anat, or Ishtar. The Romans rendered Magarsos as Megarsus. The port was later conquered by the Arab armies during the growth of Islam and then by the Ottomans in 1517. Karatas was occupied by French troops during World War I.Location
Karatas is a small city and a district in Adana Province, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, 47 km from the city of Adana, between the rivers of Seyhan and Ceyhan, the Pyramos of Antiquity.Climate
Typical Mediterranean climate
The inlet of Akyatan is a breeding ground for many birds and the sea turtle species Chelonia mydas and Caretta caretta. Karatas is particularly important for the latter, which is an endangered species that lays eggs primarily in Akyatan, another beach in neighboring Yumurtalik district and İztuzu Beach in Dalyan in southwestern Turkey.