Çavuştepe Castle stands in the village of Çavuştepe in the Gürpınar district of Van, twenty-five kilometres from Van and ten from the district centre, just south of the Van–Hakkâri road. Built at the western end of the Bol Dağı range, it is made up of a lower and an upper castle, the upper standing thirty metres above the lower.
It was built in the Urartian period by King Sarduri II between 764 and 734 BC. To honour its founder it was called Sardurihinili, the city of Sarduri.
The castle was uncovered in excavations carried out between 1961 and 1986 under Professor Arif Erzen.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Van as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -3 °C in January to 22.4 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in April (55 mm) and lightest in August (6 mm). Long-term means for 1939-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- Summer (1 April – 1 October) 08:00 - 19:00, ticket office closing at 18:30 · Winter (2 October – 31 March) 08:00 - 17:00, ticket office closing at 16:30
Getting there
- Access
- The castle is in Çavuştepe, in the Gürpınar district, on the Van-Hakkâri-Iran highway.
