Kastabala Archaeological Site

Kastabala was one of the important cities of Cilicia. It stood on a small plain near the Ceyhan River, then called the Pyramos, and its lands spread across a fertile area between the river to the south, Karatepe to the north and the village of Kırmıtlı to the west. The earliest settlement traces go back to the Neolithic, but almost everything visible today is Roman.

The city centre, enclosed by a 4th-century AD wall, climbs the north and east slopes of a small valley overlooked by the castle hill. Its remains include a colonnaded street, a vaulted complex, a theatre, baths, sacred areas, cemeteries with monumental tombs, villas, aqueducts, a nymphaeum, cisterns and churches. The colonnaded street, theatre, baths and aqueducts date to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, under the Antonine and Severan emperors. Roman fragments were later reused in medieval churches.

Kastabala was the cult centre of Artemis Perasia, a goddess worshipped here for many years, and recent excavations have brought fresh evidence for this sanctuary. The city first appears on coins struck under the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, under the name Hierapolis.