Gaziantep Castle..withstood empires, wars and plague, and was defeated by the Kahramanmaraş earthquake

A castle built more than 2000 years ago on a hill in the heart of Anatolia, and it carried the flags of the Hittites, Persians, Macedonians and Romans, and Muslims entered it in 661 AD, and it witnessed the rise and fall of empires, and it knew wars and plague, before parts of it were demolished by an earthquake that struck the Kahramanmaras region (southern Turkey) in February 6, 2023.

Construction and naming

Gaziantep Citadel is a stone castle built in the Hittite period BC, on an area of ​​1,200 meters. It is believed to have been built in the Hellenistic city built by the ancient Greeks, and then known as Gaziantep, before the Turkish parliament approved adding the word "Ghazi" to the name of the city in 1921.

Part of the damage caused by the earthquake in Gaziantep Castle (Anatolia)

Recital period

The castle represented the most important observation point for the Hittite army;

Under the rule of Emperor Suppiluliuma I, who annexed all of Anatolia and parts of the northern Levant and Mesopotamia under his control.

The Hittites achieved great victories because of their strength and military strategy, which relied on war chariots in attack and fortified castles for defense, and the Citadel of Gaziantep was one of the fortresses that contributed to the retreat of their enemies.

The castle remained steadfast with the succession of many empires in Anatolia, witnessing the passage of the Persians, Macedonians and Greeks, all the way to the rule of the Romans.

Roman period

During the era of the Roman Empire, which extended its control over Anatolia in the second and third centuries AD, the castle underwent further expansion and renovation, and during the reign of Emperor Justinian I in the period between 527 and 565 AD, the perimeter of the castle became round with 12 towers, while preserving its stone walls. ;

To be used in the first mission for which it was built.

With the accession of Justinian I, the empire had not yet overcome the major crises it had experienced since the late fifth century;

In the last months of his rule, the Persians renewed the war against the empire, and thus the bulk of the Byzantine army became preoccupied in the east, and inside Constantinople was chaos because of the revolution of the "blue and green parties", which were originally two sports teams that developed into two political parties in Constantinople.

The revolution was able to overcome some of the government forces, but it failed to demolish the towers of the castle in which the emperor's soldiers were barricaded, until support came to them from the famous leader Belisarius and his men, and this leader was able to put down the revolution after killing 30,000 Romans.

After the plague spread throughout the Byzantine Empire, Justinian tried to protect his capital, Constantinople, and several other cities by enacting a set of laws aimed at isolating every person coming from the places of the epidemic, and they are cleaned in special centers so that the possibility of disease transmission is reduced, and the castle was Served as a quarantine building, until the epidemic was over.

modern period

The city of Gaziantep was conquered by the Umayyad Arabs in 661 AD, then it passed to the Abbasids in 750 AD, and it remained under their rule until their state disintegrated, so the Tulunids, Ikhshidids and Hamdanids took control of it, until it fell into the hands of the Byzantine occupation in 962 AD. for their battles, until the Muslim Seljuk Turks regained the city in 1067 AD.

Then it fell into the hands of the Crusaders in 1098, so the Seljuks took it back again in 1150, and it was ruled by the Armenians, the Zengi family, the Ayyubids and the Mamluks, then the Ottomans extended their control over it after the battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 during the reign of Sultan Selim I.

Historians mention that the city's castle was the first building that Sultan Selim I's army was keen to enter and raise its flags on its walls.

The keys to the castle gate remained in the hands of the Ottomans until the fall of their empire and the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic in 1924.

The castle was renovated several times and took its final form in 2000, to become a panoramic museum documenting the heroics of the city's defense against the invading French forces after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

The castle was classified as a world heritage by UNESCO in the list of creative cities, and it was considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Turkey.

earthquake damage

On the morning of February 6, 2023, an earthquake measuring 7.8 degrees on the Richter scale struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, exposing historical castles and ancient buildings in the two countries to great damage.

The impact of the earthquake reached the Gaziantep Citadel, and parts of it were destroyed, due to its location near the Pazardik region in Kahramanmaraş.

The cities most affected by the earthquake.

Specialists described the earthquake as the largest in the history of the region, and only the Erzincan earthquake that occurred in northeastern Turkey in 1939, which caused great damage at that time, is close to it in strength.