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A Rock-Working at Cursat Castle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

D. W. Morray
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Extract

The castle of Cursat, modern Koz Kalesi, situated ten kilometres south of Antakya in Turkish Hatay, has been well covered: van Berchem (1914/5), Jacquot (1931) and Deschamps (1977). They draw attention to the conspicuous visible features, largely of 13th century Frankish origin, in the western and southern walls of Cursat, in particular salients A and B of the plan (Fig. 1). However, none of these previous investigators reports anything of significance on the eastern flank of the site, marked C on the plan, beyond noting the existence of a cistern, and several subterranean apartments.

As a result, they overlook two interesting features which this writer discovered in the Spring of 1989. These consist of a vertical shaft, cut in the rock, which descends from the level of a subterranean complex below the eastern terreplein, and a lower chamber at the level of the base of the castle ramparts, which receives the shaft.

The complex, comprising a Firing-platform, cistern and another apartment, possibly a bath, was noted by van Berchem and his successors. But the shaft and the lower chamber have not been recorded.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anatolian Studies , Volume 40 , December 1990 , pp. 199 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute at Ankara 1990

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References

1 van Berchem, M., Voyage en Syrie, Cairo, 1914–1915, pp. 241–51Google Scholar. See Fig. 1.

2 Jacquot, P., Antioche, Paris, 1931, pp. 424–31Google Scholar.

3 Deschamps, P., Les Châteaux des Croisés en Terre Sainte, III, La Défense du Comté de Tripoli et de la Principauté d'Antioche, Paris, 1973, pp. 351–60Google Scholar.

4 Van Berchem, op. cit., p. 242; Jacquot, op. cit., p. 430–1; Deschamps, op. cit., p. 356.

5 op. cit., p. 429.

6 Edwards, R. W., “Baǧras and Armenian Cilicia: a Reassessment” in Révue des Études Arméniennes, XVII, 1983Google Scholar, plate Vb, p. 445.

7 op. cit., fig. 142, p. 242.

8 Deschamps, op. cit., p. 355.

9 Van Berchem, op. cit., p. 244; Jacquot, op. cit., p. 429; Deschamps, op. cit., p. 356.

10 Deschamps, op. cit., p. 241.

11 My own observation. For site plan see Deschamps, op. cit., p. 314.

12 Deschamps, op. cit., p. 230–4.

13 Deschamps, op. cit., p. 234.