Amasya

i.The Yeşilırmak in the Narrow Gorge

Amasya occupies one of the most dramatic urban sites in Türkiye. The Yeşilırmak — the Green River, the ancient Iris — runs through a narrow gorge cut between two sheer cliffs of dark rock; the city is wedged into the strip of valley floor on either bank, with rock-cut royal tombs of the Pontic kings looking down from the cliff above. The setting is so theatrical that travellers from Strabo (himself born at Amasya in the 1st century BCE) onward have remarked on it: a city of bridges, of wooden-fronted Ottoman mansions reflected in the river, of a citadel on a knife-edge ridge, and of the eight large royal tombs cut directly into the limestone of the cliff face. The valley opens out to the north toward the Black Sea and to the south toward the central plateau; the city sits at the natural meeting point.

The Yeşilırmak basin has been a settlement corridor since the deep prehistory. Chalcolithic mounds (5,500–3,000 BCE) survive at Hamam Tepesi, Künbet, Ayvalıpınar, Devret, and Yoğurtçu Baba — modest tells across the surrounding country that mark the long pre-urban use of the plain. The Bronze Age brought the great Hattian civilisation of central Anatolia; the famous Mahmatlar Mound finds (gold, silver, and bronze objects, unfortunately partly looted in 1949) place Amasya within the cultural orbit of the Hattians whose dominion the Hittites would inherit.

A city wedged between two cliffs above a green river — and a Pontic capital that gave Augustus, Caesar, and Süleyman the Magnificent reason in turn to come here.

ii.Hakmiş, the Hittite Storm-God, and the Iron Age

Under the Hittites, Amasya is generally identified with the place name Hakmiš (Hakmiş), one of the cult centres of the great Hittite storm-god. The identification is debated but plausible; what is not debated is the Hittite-period bronze statue of the storm-god Teshub, dated to between 1400 and 1200 BCE, found at Doğantepe (Zara) in the central district of modern Amasya — one of the most important Hittite finds anywhere in the northern Anatolian plateau and now in the Amasya Museum.

After the collapse of the Hittite state around 1190 BCE, the long Anatolian "Dark Age" of four centuries set in. From the mid-8th century BCE the Phrygians, under King Midas (c. 725–675 BCE), pushed their dominion across the central plateau and into the Yeşilırmak basin. The Phrygian collapse came in 676 BCE under the violent attacks of the Cimmerians from over the Caucasus; the Cimmerians were succeeded by the Scythians, then by the brief Median empire (after the 585 BCE peace settlement that made the Kızılırmak the Lydian–Median border), and then, in 547/46 BCE, by the great Persian conquest under Cyrus. For the next two and a half centuries Amasya sat at the eastern edge of the Persian Cappadocian Satrapy; the great Persian Royal Road from Sardis to Susa passed through the Yeşilırmak plain.

iii.Mithridates I Ktistes Founds the Pontic Kingdom (301 BCE)

The defining moment in Amasya's ancient history came after the breakup of Alexander the Great's empire. While most of Anatolia passed under the Hellenistic successor kingdoms, the northern Anatolian country around Amasya remained outside the Macedonian orbit. In 301 BCE, the Persian-descended dynast Mithridates I Ktistes ("the Founder") established the Kingdom of Pontus with its capital at Amasya. For the next century and a half, until the kingdom's capital was moved to Sinope under Mithridates V Euergetes (150–120 BCE), Amasya was the political and cultural centre of the Pontic state.

The Pontic kings built. Under Mithridates VI Eupator (111–63 BCE) — Rome's most formidable eastern adversary, who would fight three great wars against the Republic — Amasya rose to its highest cultural moment. The royal tombs cut directly into the cliff above the Yeşilırmak — the Kral Kaya Mezarları, the "rock-cut tombs of the kings" — date to this period. Eight monumental tombs, the largest with carved façades, columned porches, and chambers cut deep into the limestone, look down on the modern city. They are the burial places of the Pontic dynasts and remain the city's most distinctive monument, visible from every street in the valley below.

The kingdom also produced the greatest geographer of antiquity: Strabo, born at Amasya around 64 BCE and educated in the cosmopolitan culture of the Hellenistic east, wrote the Geographika — the seventeen-volume description of the world in Greek that is the single most important geographical work to survive from antiquity. Strabo himself names Amaseia as his birthplace (Geography 12.3.39) and describes the setting with the affection of a native son.

iv.The Mithridatic Wars and Caesar's Veni Vidi Vici at Zela

The three Mithridatic Wars (89–63 BCE) between the Pontic kingdom and Rome ended with the final defeat of Mithridates VI Eupator by the Roman general Pompey the Great. After his victory, Pompey dissolved the Pontic kingdom and joined its lands with the neighbouring region of Bithynia to form the new Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus. Amasya passed under Roman rule.

The afterlife of the Pontic dynasty produced one of the most famous moments in Roman history. Mithridates VI's son Pharnaces II, king of the Crimean Bosphorus, took advantage of the Roman civil wars to attempt to recover his father's old kingdom. On 2 August 47 BCE, on the plain near Zela (modern Zile, just south-east of Amasya), Julius Caesar destroyed Pharnaces's army in a brief and decisive engagement. The dispatch Caesar sent to Rome announcing the victory — VENI VIDI VICI, "I came, I saw, I conquered" — is one of the most famous three-word sentences in all of ancient literature, and was sent from a battlefield within sight of modern Amasya.

v.Roman Diospontus and the Byzantine Armeniakon

In 25 BCE, the emperor Augustus annexed the Pontic region into the Roman province of Galatia. Amasya became a provincial centre with the status of metropolis, the meeting point of the imperial road system reaching east from Galatia to Cappadocia and Armenia. From the reigns of Domitian (81–96 CE) to Severus Alexander (222–235 CE) the city minted its own coinage; the coin from the time of Septimius Severus bearing the Greek inscription HERMES KTISAS TĒN POLIN — "Hermes who founded the city" — preserves the city's foundation myth in stone. Under Diocletian (early 4th c.), Amasya became the religious and administrative centre of the new province of Diospontus; from the 8th century, it was one of the principal citadels of the great Byzantine military district of Armeniakon Thema, the eastern frontier theme that bore the brunt of the Arab raids.

vi.The Dānishmendids and the Rout of the 1101 Crusade

After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turkic conquest of Anatolia reached the Yeşilırmak basin under the command of Dānishmend Ahmed Gazi, founder of the Dānishmendid dynasty, which controlled north-central Anatolia from its base at Sivas and made Amasya one of its principal cities. The Dānishmendid period at Amasya was a century of substantial building — mosques, medreses, hammams — that began the Islamic refashioning of the city.

The single best-known military event of the Dānishmendid period at Amasya is the rout of the Crusade of 1101. A combined force of French, Lombard, and German Crusaders, marching east through Anatolia in three columns to reinforce the Crusader states in the Levant, was intercepted on the road between Amasya and Merzifon on 5 August 1101 by the combined forces of the Anatolian Seljuk sultan Kılıç Arslan I and Dānishmend Ahmed Gazi. The Crusader army was destroyed in detail across several days of fighting in the country between Amasya and Merzifon; the survivors were scattered, captured, or killed, and the Crusade of 1101 effectively ended in this corner of the Yeşilırmak basin.

vii.Seljuk Amasya and the Babai Revolt (1239)

The Dānishmendid dynasty was absorbed by the Anatolian Seljuks under Sultan Kılıç Arslan II, who took Amasya in 1175. In the great division of the Seljuk realm in 1185/1186 — when Kılıç Arslan II distributed the sultanate among his eleven sons — Amasya fell to Niẓām al-Dīn Arghun-Shāh. Under the long reign of Sultan Alâeddin Keykubâd I (1220–1237), the great Seljuk patron-builder, Amasya was given as timar in 1231 to the Khwarezmian prince Bereket Khan as part of Keykubâd's preparation against the rising Mongol threat.

Under Keykubâd's successor, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Kaykhusraw II (1237–1246), Seljuk rule weakened. In 1239 (637 H), the great social-religious uprising known as the Babai Revolt swept across central Anatolia. The movement was led by the Sufi master Bābā İlyās Horasanî from his lodge near Amasya, and its practical military phase was led by his disciple Bābā İshāq Kafarsūdī, who began the rising at the village of Kafarsud and marched on Amasya. The Seljuk official historian İbn Bibi describes the Babais' arrival at Amasya in haunting terms: "…when they came to Amasya, the light of their power and might had taken hold of every side." The sultan withdrew to the citadel of Kubadabad. The Subaşı of Amasya, Hacı Armağanşah, was charged with suppressing the movement; he eventually captured Bābā İlyās at his lodge and had him hanged from the towers of Amasya Castle. The bloody suppression of the Babai Revolt was completed in the following months. Within four years the Mongols broke the Seljuks at the Battle of Köse Dağ (1243), and Amasya passed under Ilkhanid administration.

viii.Eretnids, Beyliks, and the Ottoman Conquest (1393)

After the death of the Ilkhanid ruler Abu Saʿid Bahadur Khan in 1335, the Ilkhanid governor of Anatolia, Sultan Alâeddin Eretna, declared his independence and founded the Eretnid State; Amasya passed under Eretnid rule in 1341. The 14th century brought a succession of local emirs — Tüli Bey, Hacı Kutluşah, Hacı Şadgeldi Paşa, his son Fahreddin Ahmed Bey — who held Amasya through repeated factional struggles, with the city itself benefiting from substantial building campaigns under Şadgeldi Paşa in the 1360s and 1370s (Amasya Castle repaired, a new mint, a paper factory, a complex of mosque and medrese).

The Ottoman absorption of Amasya came in 1393 (795 H), when Fahreddin Ahmed Bey — unable to defeat the Eretnid nāib Kadı Burhaneddin — proposed to surrender Amasya to the Ottomans in exchange for another sancak. Şehzade Çelebi Mehmed, the son of Bayezid I, arrived at the head of an Ottoman army and the city passed into the Ottoman state. After the catastrophic Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, when Bayezid I was captured by Timur and the Ottoman state fragmented into the long Interregnum (Fetret Devri), Çelebi Mehmed retreated to Amasya and made it his base for the eleven-year struggle to reunify the Ottoman state. From Amasya he eventually defeated his brothers and re-established single Ottoman authority as Mehmed I.

ix.Ottoman Şehzadeler Şehri — the City of Princes

From the early 15th century onward, Amasya became the most important of the Ottoman şehzade sancakları — the provincial governorships to which the sultan's sons were sent for their administrative apprenticeship. Four future sultans served their princely terms at Amasya:

• Çelebi Sultan Mehmed (Mehmed I) — used Amasya as his base during the 1402–1413 Interregnum.
• Sultan Murad II — governed Amasya as şehzade before succeeding to the throne in 1421.
• Sultan Mehmed II "the Conqueror" (Fatih Sultan Mehmet) — served as şehzade at Amasya before the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
• Sultan Bayezid II — governed Amasya for nearly thirty years before succeeding to the throne in 1481; the Bayezid Külliyesi (1486), the great mosque and medrese complex he built on the river, is his architectural memorial to the city.

The Ottoman institutional designation of Amasya was Eyalet-i Rum — the Rum Province, named for the broader Anatolian land — with Amasya as its centre and the sancaks of Sivas, Tokat, Çorum, and Samsun under its authority. The Beylerbeyi of Rum was, in the 15th and 16th centuries, one of the most senior provincial governors of the empire. Among the cultural figures of Ottoman Amasya, Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin (1385–c. 1470) stands out: the court physician of Amasya, his Cerrahiyyetü'l-Hâniyye (the "Imperial Surgery"), composed at Amasya in 1465, is the first illustrated surgical manual in Turkish-Islamic medicine, with diagrams of operations on every part of the body. The manuscript survives in major libraries in Türkiye and Europe.

x.The Treaty of Amasya (1555) and the Celali Revolts

In April 1555, Amasya hosted the most important Ottoman–Safavid diplomatic agreement of the 16th century. Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (Kanuni Sultan Süleyman), having spent the summer at Amasya on his eastern campaign, received the Safavid embassy and concluded the Treaty of Amasya — the first formal peace settlement between the two empires, ending the third Ottoman–Safavid war and establishing the principles that would govern Ottoman–Iranian relations for the remainder of the century. The treaty recognised Ottoman authority over Iraq and Eastern Anatolia and Safavid authority over Iran and the southern Caucasus, with the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala accessible to Iranian pilgrims.

The 16th-century Celali Revolts swept through the Yeşilırmak basin with particular violence. The most destructive episode at Amasya came in 1603, when followers of Kara Yazıcı Abdülhalim — himself a former Sancak Beyi of Amasya — sacked and burned the city. The notables and âyân of Amasya took refuge with their wealth inside the Pontic-king rock tombs above the river — one of the more extraordinary uses to which the ancient monuments have ever been put.

The princely sancak status of Amasya ended in 1559 (967 H), when Şehzade Bayezid, the son of Süleyman the Magnificent, defeated by his brother Selim in their succession struggle, fled from Amasya to Safavid Iran and was eventually killed there under Safavid arrangement. From that date no Ottoman prince held office at Amasya, and the city's most distinctive Ottoman role came to an end.

xi.The Amasya Circular of 22 June 1919

Amasya's second great historical moment came almost three and a half centuries later, in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Mustafa Kemal Paşa, having landed at Samsun on the Black Sea coast on 19 May 1919 ostensibly as Inspector of the Ottoman Ninth Army but in reality to begin the organisation of the national resistance, arrived at Amasya on 12 June 1919. Ten days later, on 22 June 1919, he issued from Amasya the document known to history as the Amasya Tamimi — the Amasya Circular — the founding declaration of what would become the Turkish War of Independence.

The Circular, signed jointly by Mustafa Kemal, the Inspector of the Third Army Rauf Bey (Hüseyin Rauf Orbay), the Sivas governor Refet Bey, and the corps commanders of the eastern Anatolian forces, declared that the territorial integrity of the nation and the independence of the state were in danger; that the Istanbul government, under Allied occupation, was incapable of fulfilling its responsibilities; that a national assembly would be convened to determine the nation's fate; and — in the sentence that has become the founding formula of the modern Turkish state — that "the independence of the nation can only be saved by the determination and resolve of the nation itself" (milletin istiklâlini yine milletin azim ve kararı kurtaracaktır). From the Amasya Circular flowed, within months, the Erzurum Congress (July 1919), the Sivas Congress (September 1919), and ultimately the founding of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara on 23 April 1920.

The house where Mustafa Kemal and his colleagues drafted the Circular is preserved as the Amasya Tamimi Müzesi, in the centre of the old city by the river.

xii.The Monuments: Castle, Pontic Tombs, the Wooden Mansions

Amasya Castle (Amasya Kalesi) — the long knife-edge citadel on the steep ridge that closes the south bank of the Yeşilırmak gorge. Pontic and Roman foundations; medieval Byzantine, Dānishmendid, Seljuk, and Ottoman rebuilding; spectacular views down across the city from the topmost terrace.

The Kral Kaya Mezarları (Royal Rock Tombs) — the eight monumental rock-cut tombs of the Pontic dynasty, carved directly into the cliff above the north bank of the river, immediately below Amasya Castle. Visit at sunset, when the western light flattens the cliff and the tomb façades come forward in relief. The largest tomb is reckoned to belong to Mithridates I Ktistes himself.

The Yalıboyu Evleri (Riverside Mansions) — the long row of restored 18th- and 19th-century Ottoman wooden konaks along the south bank of the Yeşilırmak, with timber-framed, white-plastered, oriel-windowed upper storeys overhanging the river. Some now operate as boutique hotels, restaurants, or small museums; the line of them reflected in the green water under the Pontic cliffs is the iconic image of the city.

The Sultan Bayezid II Külliyesi (1486) — the great mosque, medrese, imaret (soup kitchen), and library complex built by Bayezid II during his princely governorship of Amasya. One of the most complete and best-preserved early Ottoman provincial külliyes in the country.

The Sabuncuoğlu Tıp ve Cerrahi Tarihi Müzesi (Museum of the History of Medicine and Surgery) — housed in the restored Bimarhane / Darüşşifa (Mongol-period hospital, 1308), with an extraordinary collection of medical instruments, manuscripts of Sabuncuoğlu's Cerrahiyyetü'l-Hâniyye, and exhibits on the long history of Turkish-Islamic medicine.

The Amasya Müzesi — for the Hittite Teshub statue of Doğantepe, the Pontic and Roman coin collections, the Mahmatlar Mound finds, and the broader Yeşilırmak basin archaeology.

The Amasya Tamimi Müzesi — the house where Mustafa Kemal and his colleagues drafted the 22 June 1919 Circular.

xiii.Visiting Amasya Today

Amasya is reached by air from Istanbul into Amasya–Merzifon Airport, an hour north of the city; by train from Samsun and Sivas on the modernised eastern line; or by long-distance bus from Ankara (about five hours) and Istanbul (eight hours). The compact old city is best explored on foot; everything of interest is within fifteen minutes' walk along the river.

Two days is a comfortable visit: a half-day on the citadel and the Pontic tombs; an afternoon walking the Yalıboyu mansions and the Bayezid Külliyesi; an evening drink on a terrace overlooking the illuminated cliff and tombs; a morning at the museums (the Amasya Müzesi, the Sabuncuoğlu medical museum, the Amasya Tamimi house). The city is also the natural base for a day-trip to Zile (the ancient Zela, where Caesar's veni vidi vici was sent), to Merzifon, or to the Pontic-kingdom-era ruins of Boğazkale further west.

Amasya's table reflects the country: the famous Amasya elması (Amasya apple, a historic local variety), the Çatalçam yayla dairy products, çoban and çapula dishes, and the river-fish of the Yeşilırmak basin. For the broader Black Sea and central Anatolian table, see Anatolian Tables; for the recipes, our sister site TurkishCooking.com.