Kadirli
General Information
District: Osmaniye, State: Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Area: 1497 km²
Languages Spoken: Turkish
Long Distance Code: (+90) 0328
Best Time to Visit: May to August
International Access: Adana Sakirpasa Airport (ADA)Description
History The Cilicia/Çukurova plain is rich farmland and is also a place of strategic importance on an important trade route between the Middle East and Anatolia. It has therefore been settled since the time of the Hittites and many civilisations have owned the land since: Assyrians, Romans (he Roman city of Flavius may have been located here), Byzantines, Armenians and finally Turks. The most prominent group of Turks to settle here were the Dulkadir lords, semi-autonomous barons during the Ottoman era, who ruled Gaziantep, Kahramanmaraş and Hatay for two centuries. They were routed when the land was brought under Ottoman control by Yavuz Sultan Selim I in 1517. Kadirli was occupied by French forces at the end of the First World War under the terms of the armistice signed by the Ottoman Empire. The French forces were resisted by local elements and eventually withdrew from the town in March 1920. Kadirli was a district (ilçe) in Kozan province between 1923-1926 and in Adana Province between 1926-1995. Kadirli today Kadirli is a small town providing the basic infrastructure, such as shops and schools, to an area of rich farmland, which produces grain and 70% of Turkey's radishes. There are two reservoirs for irrigating the area. There is small scale industry. In the summertime, families move to the uplands of Taurus Mountains, mainly Plateau Maksutolugu, adjacent to Kahramanmaraş because of hot weather in a general manner, also working people staying in town join their families in the weekends. In recent times, inhabitants also prefer to spend their summertime at the sea side in Yumurtalık and Mersin during hot season as an alternative of moving to plateau. In Kadirli, there is a vocational college connected with the Korkut Ata University, Osmaniye. The college offers two educational programs: Computer Programming and Industrial Electronics since 1997. Places of interest There are many archaeological and touristic sites nearby such as: Karatepe National Park - 23 km from Kadirli. The ruins of a walled city of the time of the Hittites. Discovered by archaeologists Halet Cambel and Helmut Bossert. Relics found here date from a late Hittite kingdom (8th century BC) and include vast historic tablets, statues and ruins, even a monumental gate and pillars of lions and sphinxs. The ruins even gave us inscriptions in Hittite and Phoenician, which have been used to decipher the Hittite language. The Alacami is the oldest surviving monument in Kadirli. Its remains display over a millennium and a half of local history in several building phases. In the late 5th / early 6th century the site was artificially terraced for the construction of a large basilical church, built in at least two stages from a variety of reused architectural elements and incorporating the hypogeum as a crypt. It later seems to have fallen into disuse until the medieval period when it was converted into an Armenian church. This involved some modification to the original structure and the addition of a small church that sits inside the former nave of the church and reuses the original apse. This small church was converted into a mosque in the late 15th century, and a minaret was attached to the original Byzantine structure.Location
Kadirli (formerly called Kars, and possibly the ancient Flavias or Flaviopolis), is a town and district of Osmaniye Province in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. It is located in the Çukurova plain, 90 km (56 mi) from the large city of Osmaniye.Climate
Osmaniye has a mediterranean climate. Summers are very hot and dry while the winters are cool and wet.
The castle of Amouda (Turkish: Hemite Kalesi) is a crusader castle in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia (in Osmaniye Province of modern-day Turkey). The castle was granted to the Teutonic Knights in 1212 (Barber 2008) and rebuilt by them in the 13th century to serve as their local headquarter in Armenia. it also earned revenue for the Teutonic Order from the surrounding land. According to contemporary sources (Wilbrand van Oldenburg), the castle provided shelter for 2000 people during an invasion by the Mamluks.
Architecture
Rather than typically Armenian (such as at Yilankale or Lampron), the design of Amouda is similar to the Teutonic Knights''s castle at Montfort with a keep guarding the entrance (Molin 2001).
Architecture
Rather than typically Armenian (such as at Yilankale or Lampron), the design of Amouda is similar to the Teutonic Knights''s castle at Montfort with a keep guarding the entrance (Molin 2001).
Karatepe (Turkish for "Black Hill"; Hittite: Azatiwataya) is a late Hittite fortress and open air museum in Osmaniye Province in southern Turkey lying at a distance of about 23 km from the district center of Kadirli. it is sited in the Taurus Mountains, on the right bank of the Ceyhan River. The site Coordinates: 37.258801°N 36.247601°E is contained within Karatepe-Arslantas National Park.
History
The place was an ancient city of Cilicia, which controlled a passage from eastern Anatolia to the north Syrian plain. it became an important Neo-Hittite center after the collapse of the Hittite Empire in the late 12th century BCE. Relics found here include vast historic tablets, statues and ruins, even two monumental gates with reliefs on the sills depicting hunting and warring and a boat with oars; pillars of lions and sphinxes flank the gates.
The site''s eighth-century BCE bilingual inscriptions, in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian, which trace the kings of Adana from the "house of Mopsos", given in Hieroglyphic Luwian as Moxos and in Phoenician as Mopsos in the form mps, have served archaeologists as a Rosetta stone for deciphering Hieroglyphic Luwian.
According to a 2010 ZDF documentary featuring the writer and translator Raoul Schrott, the fortress and surrounding landscape at Karatepe significantly match Homer''s descriptions of Troy in the iliad. According to this theory, Homer may have used his knowledge of the legend of Troy and combined it into historical fiction, using his own experiences and access to writings as a scribe in the service of the Assyrians in Karatepe.
Archaeology
After the site was discovered in 1946, Karatepe was excavated from 1947 to 1957 by a team led by Helmuth Theodor Bossert, revealing the ruins of the walled city of king Azatiwataš. Restoration work was then carried on for many years, which included some further soundings. in the late 1990s, archaeological work, now led by Halet Cambel, was conducted on a palace at the site.
Estimates for the dating of Azatiwataš rule have ranged from the early 8th century BCE to the early 7th century BCE.
History
The place was an ancient city of Cilicia, which controlled a passage from eastern Anatolia to the north Syrian plain. it became an important Neo-Hittite center after the collapse of the Hittite Empire in the late 12th century BCE. Relics found here include vast historic tablets, statues and ruins, even two monumental gates with reliefs on the sills depicting hunting and warring and a boat with oars; pillars of lions and sphinxes flank the gates.
The site''s eighth-century BCE bilingual inscriptions, in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian, which trace the kings of Adana from the "house of Mopsos", given in Hieroglyphic Luwian as Moxos and in Phoenician as Mopsos in the form mps, have served archaeologists as a Rosetta stone for deciphering Hieroglyphic Luwian.
According to a 2010 ZDF documentary featuring the writer and translator Raoul Schrott, the fortress and surrounding landscape at Karatepe significantly match Homer''s descriptions of Troy in the iliad. According to this theory, Homer may have used his knowledge of the legend of Troy and combined it into historical fiction, using his own experiences and access to writings as a scribe in the service of the Assyrians in Karatepe.
Archaeology
After the site was discovered in 1946, Karatepe was excavated from 1947 to 1957 by a team led by Helmuth Theodor Bossert, revealing the ruins of the walled city of king Azatiwataš. Restoration work was then carried on for many years, which included some further soundings. in the late 1990s, archaeological work, now led by Halet Cambel, was conducted on a palace at the site.
Estimates for the dating of Azatiwataš rule have ranged from the early 8th century BCE to the early 7th century BCE.