Harput Castle

Harput Castle stands on a rocky height above today's Elâzığ. Current knowledge credits the Urartian kingdom with founding it around the early 8th century BC. A relief found in 2016 in the Nevruz forest, roughly 500 metres to the east and dated to the early second millennium BC, pushes the story of settlement here back by about twelve centuries.

The place has carried many names. Romans and Byzantines knew it as Ziata Castellum, and Arab chroniclers as Hisn Ziyad. It passed to Turkmen chiefs in 1085 and to the Artuqid emir Belek Gazi in 1115, and the impressive Artuqid palace still sits at the northern end of the castle. In 1516 it was taken for the Ottomans, and in the 17th century an Ottoman quarter grew inside the walls.

The castle and town remained important until the end of the Ottoman period. Between 1830 and 1920 residents gradually moved to the newly founded city of Elâzığ, and the old settlement emptied. What remains is a landscape of ruins, terraces and long views across the plain.

The site suits a slow walk, with time to read the layers of history in the walls.