These tumuli are closed to visitors. They lie about three kilometres from the centre of İzmit on the old İstanbul road, at the village of Kabaoğlu Üçtepeler, which takes its name from them: three of them stand inside the village and four outside it. They are thought to be royal graves.
Two have been located and opened. The first, called the Aytepe tumulus, proved to be of the late Hellenistic and early Roman period. The second was opened at the entrance to the village; excavation of this large tumulus, also Roman, showed that it had been robbed in its own time, and nothing from the grave has survived.
Getting there
- Access
- Reached by vehicles running from the city centre towards the Kocaeli University campus.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kocaeli as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.3 °C in January to 24 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (108 mm) and lightest in August (42 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
