A castle tour of Turkey

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x0x A castle tour of Turkey

By AKGUN AKOVA

Any traveller who follows the history of Anatolia knows
how important it is to dream. Closing his eyes tight on
the streets of an ancient city, he will hear the
grinding of horse-drawn goods carts on the marble
pavement, the voices of haggling merchants, the calls
of watchmen on patrol. The strains of a chant will
reach his ears in front of a monastery. And even with
his eyes closed he will see the lights of the candles,
lighted one by one, being engulfed in the night. At a
collapsed bridge the clatter of horses' hooves will
punctuate the murmur of the waters. Standing before a
fortress, the same imaginary traveller will hear the
roar of armies and battle cries, and the bitter sound
of human voices will mingle with exploding cannons,
clashing swords and arrows whizzing through the air.
For a fortress signifies war. And war is a story filled
with attacks, and the tragic heroism of the defenders.
Hilltop fortresses watch over almost every city and
border crossing in Anatolia. Attacked from every
direction over the centuries, the lands of Anatolia
found a solution in erecting fortresses, stone upon
stone, in an attempt to resist the armies of the
Mongols, the Persians, the Crusaders and Alexander the
Great.

ON THE WINGS OF A DOVE...

We have five carrier pigeons we are going to send from
fortress to fortress. Our first dove alights on a
medieval castle whose Arabic name, 'Hasankeyf', means
Rock Fortress, a maze of secret passages carved out of
stone. These passageways, which trace a zigzag down to
the banks of the Tigris, are escape routes. A long
gorge that encircles the surrounding countryside was
once a trail for the silk caravans. From the Artukids
to the Umayyads, the footsteps of many an army
resounded here on the rocky cliffs that form this road.
But let us leave the fortress not at war but at a feast
in the 15th century: The daughter of Shah Ismail, ruler
of Safavid Iran, is marrying Halil Shah, commander of
Hasankeyf, and a feather from our white dove falls on
her wedding gown.

Our second dove wings it way to the Mediterranean
coast, alighting on the Red Tower of Alanya Castle. The
tower at first assumes it has been sent by the
architect, Kettenizade Ebur Rahaoglu Ebu Ali of Aleppo.

Not to disappoint, the dove explains that it has been
dispatched by Alaaddin Keykubad.

"No matter", exclaims the tower, "Salutations to the
ruler who had me built!" As we tour the Alanya Castle
with its four gates, suddenly a loud explosion is
heard. Our started dove takes flight and vanishes from
view. If only we could have caught up with it, we would
have said, "Have no fear. This is only the cannon being
fired at Egrikapi to announce the end of the day's
fast. It's Ramazan and the people of Alanya have been
waiting all day to sit down to dinner!" But our voice
is lost in the echo of the explosion, which is heard
all the way up in the villages of the Taurus.

It is almost night when our third dove reaches the
island fortress of Bozcaada. The whitewashed stone
houses, the goats withdrawn to their pens, and the wet
wine glasses are enveloped in darkness. The castle is
suddenly going to be illuminated in bursts, followed by
the sound of wingbeats. For this time our dove is not
going far. We will tell it that fireworks are
responsible for these bursts of light and that the
islanders are celebrating the grape harvest. In fact,
we will say, "In 1890 Semsettin Sami wrote that
Bozcaada was `shaped like a grand piano.' Just look at
its silhouette in the moonlight." Our dove will fold
its weary wings tonight at Behramkale, ancient Assos.
As it sleeps it will dream of a man explaining the
difference between being and non-being to his pupils.
Opening its eyes, it will see a bright blue morning.
When it speaks with the castle's crumbling walls, it
will learn that the man in the dream was Aristotle, who
founded his school of philosophy at Assos.

Our fourth dove will be thirsty when it arrives at
Kahta's Yenikale fortress. As it drinks from a copper
bowl, it will learn that stonemasons fashioned a tunnel
from inside the fortress down to the Kahta river so
that the castle residents never went thirsty during a
siege. There too it will hear the wingbeats of its
ancestors. For there was a `carrier pigeon post office'
inside the fortress, once used by the Mamluks for
getting news from Aleppo, Cairo and Damascus.


THE CASTLES OF CUKUROVA

Let us place our fifth dove on the shoulder of a
contemporary writer of epics.

Yasar Kemal, who stands like a fortress at the summit
of Turkish literature, will regale our dove with tales
of Cukurova, Yilanlikale, Anavarza and Toprakkale. We
cannot close without quoting a few lines from this
narrative, which goes on for several days: "There must
have been storks at the fortress now. Every night they
would come in flocks, alighting on its tall towers to
sleep there, clacking their beaks in unison until
morning."

Fortresses, fortresses and more fortresses... The
Bakras Fortress, where peasants pass carrying firewood
on horseback. Cesme Fortress, overlooking the Aegean
with a statue of Cezayirli Hasan Pasha in front of it.
Who is that next to the pasha? Why his famous lion, of
course! And then the Fortress of Sinop, where
prisoners once slept with the tiny ships' models they
fashioned of wood. Van Fortress, overlooking a great
salt lake, compared by Evliya Celebi to a `sitting
camel'. And Unye Fortress with its rock grave, sketched
by the French painter Jules Laurens in 1845. Here in
Lycia, land of light, the fortress at Kekova, which
harbours a small theatre inside it.

Kumkale at Yavuzeli, which saw Caesar and Alexander the
Great cross the Euphrates on horseback. Here the
fortress of Harran, a true Mesopotamian bastion... And
then the fortresses whose names I love: Gokgozkale at
Eskisehir Seyitgazi, Harabegul Fortress at Agri,
Zilkale at Rize Camlihemsin, Cincin Fortress in Aydin
Kocarli, Horoz Fortress at Kilis, and Bogazkesen, or
Rumelihisar, built by Mehmed the Conqueror at
Istanbul... and the hundreds of other Anatolian
fortresses.

Even though fortresses are the offspring of wars, we
have not spoken here of blood or death. Neither have we
mentioned Bozcaada Fortress, one of the bases used by
the enemy armies attacking Troy and the Dardanelles
peninsula in the First World War, nor the gouges made
by cannonballs in the walls of the fortifications at
Seddulbahir and Kilitbahir. We have left it to others
to speak of conflict and have spoken the language of
peace, not war. We sent a white dove to each fortress
and described some of them for you.

It was our hope that even if these ancient castles
continue to stand as monuments on the hilltops, no new
ones will be built and the word `war' will be forgotten
in all languages. May the words of Ya$ar Kemal in his
story, `KalekapIsI' (Fortress Gate), prevail forever:
"On the first day of summer young girls, dressed in
their finest clothes, ascended the castle. Then,
singing folk songs, they scampered down across the
plain, which was covered with wild tulips as far as the
eye could see."

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