Anemourion

ANEMOURION The town was founded by the Phoenicians as a trading station on the coast of Cilicia almost opposite to Cyprus in Asia Minor's southernmost point. Sometime before the 12 century BC it was occupied by the Assyrians and the Hittites. At the end of the 12th century BC the area was occupied by a nomadic tribe that had come from across the Caucasus mountains. The tribe was known to the ancient Greeks as the"Wind people" (Ανέμου γένος), after whom the city was named. Then the city came under the control of the Phoenicians again, and later it was occupied by the Persians. In 333 BC Alexander the Great brought the whole Cilician coast within his Macedonian Empire, and he was succeeded by the Seleucid dynasty and then by the Romans. Cilicia was given by Marc Anthony to Queen Cleopatra as a wedding present together with Syria, but the Ptolemaic rule was short lived. After Cleopatra's death, the area returned to Roman rule. With the split of the Roman Empire, the Romans were succeeded by the Byzantines. After a terrible earthquake in 580 AD, which almost flattened the town, urban life concentrated in a small nucleus around the remains of the Roman baths and gymnasium complex. The stone walls of the city are partly intact and many of the small houses are still standing. The small theatre or odeion is largely intact across from the more poorly preserved large theatre and there are several bath buildings. Enough is left of the city’s two-storey Roman bathhouse to give a good impression of what it was in its heyday, with changing rooms, a hot section, a warm section, and a hall with a pool. The magnificent and very well preserved nearby Anamur Castle, which originally was built by the Romans in the third or fourth century AD, was enlarged by the Byzantines and the Crusaders. Later in the 13th century AD the Ottomans rebuilt and expanded it in its present form.

The castle was built on the foundation of an ancient castle built by the Roman Empire in the forth century, undoubtedly against pirates. It was later on repaired by the Byzantine Empire and the Crusades. When Alaattin Keykubat I of Seljuk Turks captured the ruins of the castle in 1221, he built a larger castle partially using the foundation of the former castle. It was later on incorporated into the realm of Karamanids (A Turkish state in Anatolia in the Medieval ages.) Although the exact date is uncertain, according to an inscription erected by İbrahim II of Karaman in 1450, the castle was captured during Mahmut’s reign (1300–1308). The castle was renamed as Mamure (prosperous) after repaired by Mahmut. In 1475, the castle was annexed by the Ottoman Empire. During Ottoman reign, the castle was repaired in the 15th, 16th and 18th centuries and a part of the castle was used as a cervansarai.