The triple-arched gate
The only three-arched Roman gate in Cilicia, standing alone in a field.
MUSTAFA TOR at English Wikipedia — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Leon petrosyan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Leon petrosyan — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Leon petrosyan — CC BY-SA 4.0
An entire Roman city, walls, gate, colonnaded street and theatre included, abandoned after the Mamluks razed it in 1375 and never rebuilt as a city. That is the whole secret of Anavarza: no hotels, no cafes, no coaches, just wheat fields, a village called Dilekkaya, and in the middle of it a limestone crag rising some 200 metres with a medieval Armenian fortress on top. Ancient Anazarbus was the capital of late Roman Cilicia Secunda and for a time the seat of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia; Dioscorides, whose herbal remained the standard pharmacology text for some fifteen centuries, was born here. It has sat on the UNESCO tentative list since 2014, and entry is free. The three-arched Roman triumphal gate is the first thing you meet, the only one of its kind in Cilicia and the most striking thing on the site. Beyond it runs the colonnaded street, once 34 metres wide and about 2.7 kilometres long, with the remains of a bath, a church, a theatre and a stadium along it. All of this lies in open farmland with no internal fences, no paved paths and very little signage, so read up before you come or bring someone who can explain what you are looking at. There are mosaics still in situ, the third-century Thetis panel being the best known, and rock-cut tombs along the foot of the crag. The fortress separates the casual visitor from the committed one. You climb a stair cut into the rock and then a rough track, thirty to forty minutes for a reasonably fit walker, and the reward is the whole Çukurova plain and the dead city laid out beneath you. The stair is out of the question for pushchairs or bad knees; children over ten love it, younger ones are happier on the plain. Look for the long cleft that slices through the ridge, which locals attribute to a sword-stroke of Imam Ali; it is in fact an ancient cut passage. From Adana it is about 70 km north-east, an hour to an hour and a half by car via Kozan, and there is little point coming any other way: bus to Kozan and then a 28 km taxi to the village doubles the time and the cost. Make a full day of it with Kozan Castle, and avoid July and August if you can. The site is completely exposed, with no shade, no cafe and nothing to drink for sale, and the plain regularly tops 40 degrees. Spring, when the fields go green around the columns, is when it looks its best.
The only three-arched Roman gate in Cilicia, standing alone in a field.
A rock-cut stair leads to Armenian walls and a view over the whole Çukurova plain.
A 34-metre-wide avenue running about 2.7 km past the remains of a bath, a theatre and a church.
Dilekkaya village, Kozan district, Adana
If you want mosaics and statues in air conditioning, the Adana museum is enough, since many of the finest finds from Anavarza were moved there. Anavarza is for people who want the city itself: a gate, columns and a fortress in an empty plain with nobody about. With a car, a cool morning and Kozan Castle on the way, it earns the day; in August heat or without a car, it does not.
The plain, yes, with care: the ground is dirt and loose stone, and a pushchair struggles along the colonnaded street. The fortress, no; its rock stair needs free hands and children who walk on their own. Bring water and hats, as there is no shade and nothing sold on site.