The ancient harbour town at Yumurtalık, on the Gulf of İskenderun, was Aegeae to the ancients and Ayas in the Middle Ages. An important port of ancient Cilicia, it saw its brightest days in the first century BC. Between the seventh and tenth centuries it was laid waste in the wars between Arabs and Byzantines, and from the eleventh century it recovered as a bishopric and as a trading port of some standing.
Two castles were built in that prosperous period, one on land and one on an island in the harbour. Both were attacked repeatedly by the Mamluks between 1266 and 1337, and the land castle was knocked down and rebuilt so often that, as the district governorate notes, it reads today as a patchwork of reused stone.
The island fortress, known as Kız Kalesi, was laid out in Italian style as a service building for ships putting in at Ayas. Research on its halls and rooms suggests it worked as a customs post, holding grain, a water cistern and weapons, and handling the paperwork of the port.
What still stands of the city is the castle of Ayas, the Süleymaniye tower and the quay known as Marco Polo's landing. Marco Polo came here twice on his journeys to the east; the jetty where he is said to have landed on his first visit, in 1269, stayed a working grain quay until about sixty years ago. The city was also famous for the remains of its Hellenistic hospital and temple, the Asclepieion.
The site is reached by the vehicles running from the centre of Adana to the district of Yumurtalık.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Adana as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 9.6 °C in January to 28.8 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, October and November; rainfall is heaviest in December (125 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Getting there
- Access
- Vehicles running from central Adana to Yumurtalık serve the site.
