Historic Sites in Turkey: Explore Ancient Cities, Fortresses and Palaces

Explore more than 400 historic sites in Turkey, including prehistoric settlements, ancient cities, fortresses, palaces, churches and mosques. Among the examples are closely packed houses at Çatalhöyük, a Hittite gateway, Roman streets and residences at Ephesus, and an Ottoman fortress beside the Bosphorus. Palace courtyards and domed religious buildings show other forms of architecture represented across the collection.

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Prehistoric settlements and houses

At Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia, successive generations built houses over earlier buildings, gradually creating deep settlement mounds. The excavated neighbourhoods preserve tightly packed houses with little space for streets between them.

Many houses were entered through roof openings, and movement probably took place across the roofs. These openings also helped ventilate interiors containing hearths and ovens. The arrangement differs from the street-based plans of many later towns.

City gates and waterside fortresses

The Lion Gate at Hattusa belonged to the outer defences of the Hittite capital. Two towers flanked a central gate chamber, with monumental sculpted lions at the exterior entrance.

Large stone blocks formed the lower towers and doorway. The surviving structure includes modern conservation work, including the reconstruction of a missing lion’s head.

Rumelihisarı occupies the European shore of the Bosphorus opposite Anadoluhisarı. Mehmed II commissioned it before the Ottoman siege of Constantinople to restrict supplies and military assistance reaching the city by water.

Three principal towers and smaller watchtowers are linked by defensive walls following the hillside. The northern principal tower alone has walls about seven metres thick. The position beside the narrow waterway explains both the fortress’s purpose and the concentration of masonry along its slopes.

Ancient cities, libraries and residences

Ephesus preserves a large ancient urban site between the hills near Selçuk. Streets connected civic spaces, residential districts and the harbour. As river sediment accumulated, the shoreline moved westward, leaving the ancient harbour inland.

The Library of Celsus was commissioned in the early second century AD in memory of a Roman provincial governor. His sarcophagus lay beneath the building. Nearby, the Terrace Houses contain courtyards, mosaic floors, wall paintings and marble panelling from wealthy Roman residences.

The houses occupy terraces on a hillside opposite the Temple of Hadrian. Some remained in use into late antiquity, with successive alterations to their rooms and decoration.

Palaces and courtly residences

Topkapı Palace in Istanbul grew from the palace commissioned by Mehmed II after the conquest of Constantinople. It consists of courtyards, pavilions, gardens, service buildings and residential quarters, rather than one large symmetrical block.

Four principal courtyards organize the main approach through the complex. Successive additions accommodated court life and government, while the palace’s position overlooks the Golden Horn, Bosphorus and Sea of Marmara.

Ishak Pasha Palace in eastern Turkey follows a related sequence of outer and inner courts in a mountain setting. Service rooms and stables occupied the outer court; the inner court led towards reception rooms, a mosque and residential spaces.

Its walls rise above steep slopes near Doğubeyazıt. The courtyards and private quarters fit within a comparatively compact enclosure on the rocky spur, overlooking the former settlement and the route towards Iran.

Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques

Hagia Sophia in Trabzon is a thirteenth-century church associated with the Empire of Trebizond. Its cross-shaped arrangement centres on a domed space, with a windowed drum above the crossing. It later became a mosque.

The Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul was built for Suleiman I by the architect Sinan between 1550 and 1557. A large central dome and adjoining semi-domes cover the prayer hall, while galleries help incorporate the supporting buttresses into the exterior.

The mosque was part of a wider foundation containing schools, a hospital, a public kitchen and other buildings. Its plan therefore extended beyond the prayer hall to facilities serving education, accommodation and daily needs.

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