Photos by Jack A. Waldron
The Towers of Korykos, or Corycus, were obviously built with defensive purposes in mind, but, were they built to watch for sea attack, or to warn of attack from the hinterland? I suspect they were built to guard both fronts. Pictured above and below, the Gomec Tower (36°29'24.1"N 34°08'08.1"E) is located about three kilometers up from the coast, above ancient Korykos/Corycus.
Gomec Tower (pictured here) is believed to be Roman built, but the exact date is impossible to tell, and the range of possible construction dates falls somewhere between the end of the Seleucid period of rule in 133 BCE, to the elimination of the pirate problem by Pompey in 65 BCE. There are five watch towers in the area, but I only managed to photograph one point five of them. They were a surprise to me, so I must return to the area to explore all of them. The five watch towers are Gomec Kule ('Kule' means 'Tower' in Turkish), Gucuk Kule, Sarayin Kule, Boyan Kule, and Akkum Kule.
Gomec Kule stands about 11.30 meters high, with a square base measuring 4.7 meters on each side, that narrows as it rises to 4.2 meters on each side. There is no mortar between the pseudo-isodomum blocks, but this style of construction is quite resistant to earthquakes.
The entrance door measures about two meters in height, and about one meter in width. The beam holes above the door allowed for the installation of an awning, or some kind of platform above the door. There is a window just above these beam holes, but it has been filled with two large stone blocks.
There is a slit between the lower blocked window and the top floor open window. Crenellations and merlons surround the crown of the tower, which helped protect the defenders from slings and arrows.
In the photo above, we can see holes on the west side of the door jam that were used to bolt the door shut. The door opened inward, and the holes for the door hinges are located on the east side of the jam (not pictured). The door would close tight against the raised edge seen in the photo above, and then be bolted closed.
The inner walls have beam holes that allowed for four levels or floors within the tower, the top floor being a platform for lookout. The area around the tower has the remains of various buildings, including an olive press (pictured below).
Two Hundred meters southwest of Gomec Kule is another watch tower called Gucuk Kule (36°29'10.6"N 34°07'56.4"E). In the photo below, you can see Gucuk Kule as viewed from Gomec Kule.
Ancient Korykos/Corycus is only three kilometers down the slope from Gucuk Kule, and my guess as to why Gomec Kule and Gucuk Kule are so close together, is that they guarded the road between Korykos and ancient Olba.
In the far left of the photo below, we can see Sarayin Kule (36°29'03.7"N 34°09'17.2"E), which is located about two kilometers east of Gomec Kule and Gucuk Kule. This photo was taken from Google Maps, which means I must photograph this tower in the future. There are two more towers in the area that I must visit in the future, they being Akkum Kule (36°28'20.2"N 34°06'58.2"E), and Boyan Tower (36°27'51.8"N 34°06'01.6"E). As I stated before, there is no end to the antiquities located in this area of Cilicia, so I have a lot of future work to do.
*All photos and content property of Jack A. Waldron (photos may not be used without written permission)
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