Rabat Kalesi stands in the village of Hisaraltı, 15 kilometres west of Derik in Mardin. Its inscription is lost and the written sources say little, so when it was built is not established. The Artuqids repaired it and enlarged it with additions.
It is a large castle on a rectangular plan, built of local cut stone with rubble in places, set on a valley that widens as it runs from north to south. Fifteen bastions ring it, with four watchtowers at the corners, and the towers and bastions rise as high as fifteen metres. There are gates on the east and the west. Inside, the remains show underground stores and shelters, and part of the ruins has been claimed as a mansion belonging to the castle's commander.
The ground around it holds more than the castle. What lies among the ruins is a whole settlement — the remains of a palace and a church stand there alongside a good many lesser buildings. On the side towards the large church are structures put together from monolithic stones carved with crosses. Because that manner of building resembles Roman work, the directorate takes Rabat itself to have been a Roman town, not merely a fortress.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Mardin as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 3.1 °C in January to 29.9 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (114 mm) and lightest in August (2 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
