Mezgitkale

36.46722222222234.027083333333Koordinaten: 36 ° 28 '2 " N, 34 ° 1' 37" E

Mezgit Kalesi ( Mezgitkale, also known as the Mausoleum of the fearless king, Turkish Korkusuz Kral Mezari ) is a Roman temple grave in the Rough Cilicia from the 2nd or 3rd century in the district of the Turkish province of Mersin Silifke.

Location

Mezgit Kalesi located in the village Öztürkmenli about ten kilometers west of Maiden's and about the same distance north of Silifke. In the seaside resort Atakent ( the ancient Korasion, formerly Susanoğlu ) branches on the eastern outskirts of the coastal road D- 400, a road from north to İmamlı. You reached after about eleven kilometers, the Roman ruins of Paslı where another road turns right to Öztürkmenli. After another two kilometers it reaches Mezgit Kalesi.

Description

The grave is in the form of a Tetraprostylos and stands on an area of ​​about 9.2 × 7.7 meters plus a no longer existing staircase of 2.5 meters. The height is 7.8 meters, the grave chamber is approximately square with a side length of 4.9 meters. The four upstream columns and Corinthian capitals have the antenna with smooth, non- drafted leaves. There is a phallus relief whose meaning is unclear on the left stair stringer. In the tympanum a rectangular frame is obtained, which perhaps was wearing a medallion or inscription. On the rear gable three reliefs are visible, representing a sword, a shield and possibly a scorpion. Hans Gerd Helle Kemper and Friedrich Hild keep an interpretation of the reliefs as a baldric possible, however, point to poor lighting conditions. From the columns collar halfway out four consoles that probably contributed busts or statues of the grave owner.

In the grave chamber, the grave sites were arranged in two levels, of which nothing remains. Only the consoles on which rested the upper level, are still present. The chamber was probably used in the early modern period as a living space. For this purpose, a ceiling was made ​​of wooden beams and walled in on the back wall with a fireplace on the consoles. A deduction has been broken in the rear wall of the grave house. This type of reuse is known from medieval time castles in Cilicia in ancient buildings, however, only from the time of resettlement by Turkish semi-nomads in the 17th and 18th centuries. At the back of the grave construction close to walls that belong to an at least two -storey building. More ruins in the vicinity as well as cisterns and the ruins of an oil mill can be assigned to an agricultural property of Late Roman -Early Byzantine period. Bright Kemper and Hild date the grave, like most Roman tombs in the Rough Cilicia, the 2nd or the first half of the 3rd century.

What is often used popular name " Mausoleum of the fearless king " goes back, does not clarify itself.

Pediment

Rear gable front with reliefs

Interior with fireplace

Back from the northwest