Guide
Emirzeli lies in the Erdemli district of Mersin, north-west of Kanlıdivane. The ancient settlement is made of two large slopes and a hollow between them.
On the north slope the columns of a peristyle house still stand, and above it is a two-storey house of the early Byzantine period whose wide door lintel carries a cross at the centre with a peacock on either side. A little beyond that house stands a tower built by the priests of Olba, dated to the Hellenistic period and now badly damaged; a phallos symbol can be seen on its south wall.
The south slope was given over to churches — three of them, built one after another. Of the first, to the west, the narthex and part of the apse survive; the eastern one has collapsed entirely; the middle one has come down in better condition than either. All three are basilicas of three aisles whose central nave ends in a semicircular apse on the east, with side rooms arranged symmetrically north and south of the bema holding that apse. The material is regular small cut stone, and by their general character the churches are dated to the fifth and the early sixth century.
In the section between the two slopes, directly below the middle church, there is a large hollow. It has been presented as a Roman sanctuary, but the large columns and bases around it suggest instead that it may have been a cistern. In that same hollow the door frames of houses are still standing. Two small Roman necropolises lie on the south slope, and the valley enclosing the site on the west and north holds architectural remains and rock tombs.
