The castle stands on Mount Harşena, on the northern side of Amasya, and is often called by the mountain's name. It rises roughly 300 metres above the Yeşilırmak, and between the riverbank and the summit the defences are arranged in eight stages — the clearest way to grasp how the city was held.
Who built it is not settled. The provincial directorate notes that Arab historians credit a Turkish ruler named Karsan Han, while Western historians attribute it to the Pontic king Mithridates; for the inner castle the written sources generally point to Mithridates and a date around 250 BC. What is not in doubt is how many hands kept it. It was repaired and garrisoned in turn by Danişmend Ahmet Gazi after 1075, Sultan Mesud I in 1146, Alâeddin Keykubad I in 1222, Tacettin Mahmud Çelebi in 1319 and Şadgeldi Paşa in 1369, and again in Ottoman times, in 1511 and 1669.
The walls are of cut stone. Evliya Çelebi, who came here in 1640, counted forty-one towers and described palaces, armouries, granaries, cisterns and water passages running down to the river, with the ground beneath the castle full of caves. One of those water works can still be traced: clearing of the shaft known as the Cilanbolu well, or Cilanbolu tunnel, had reached 170 metres by 2009.
Sultan Mesud I made Amasya his capital and built a mosque, a medrese, a bath and a palace inside the inner castle, where he lived. On its southern side lie the remains of the Kızlar Sarayı, a Hellenistic building the Ottomans went on using until 1580; the traveller Dernschwam recorded that the palace survived into the sixteenth century as a military store, stone on the outside, brick and timber within. The inner castle had four gates — Helkis, Saray, Midenos and Meydan — each facing a different bridge or quarter of the town below. The castle itself was in use until the thirteenth century, and parts of the walls have recently been cleaned and repaired.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Amasya as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2.7 °C in January to 23.9 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (55 mm) and lightest in August (10 mm). Long-term means for 1961-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:15 - 19:00
