Yeni Kale stands inside Kocahisar village, the old Kahta, in the Kahta district of Adıyaman. Its first construction goes back as far as the Hittites, but the form it has today is Mamluk, and it remained in use under the Ottomans. Over its history it is known to have passed through the hands of the Urartians, the Parthians, the Commagenians, the Romans, the Sasanians and the Arabs.
The castle carries a number of inscriptions — over the gateway, in the masjid, on the eastern bastion and at the entrance to the palace — and they name the rulers who held it: the inscription over the gate names the Mamluk sultan Qalawun, the one in the masjid Melik Eşref Selahaddin Halil, and the one at the palace entrance Melik Nasir. Within the walls are a masjid, a prison and dungeon, a tower where carrier pigeons were raised, cisterns, a bath, and a hidden water passage running down to the Kahta stream, the ancient Nymphaios. The castle is sixty kilometres from Kahta on the Nemrut Dağı road, reached by private car or on a tour.
Getting there
- Access
- Sixty kilometres along the Nemrut Dağı road in the Kahta district of Adıyaman. Reached by private car or on a tour.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Adıyaman as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.7 °C in January to 31.1 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (137 mm) and lightest in July (2 mm). Long-term means for 1963-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
