Cilician Gates
The Cilician Gates (Gulek Bogaz) is the key pass leading from the central Anatolian plateau to the Cilician plain and gives access from the cities of Konya and Ankara to Adana and the Mediterranean at Iskenderun and Antakya. Running between the Bolkarlar and Aladag Mountains, the road descends along the course of the Cakir Cay, a tributary of the Seyhan River, to Gulek Bogaz, the narrowest point of the pass, at an altitude of 1,050 meters (3,400 feet). The original passage was cut through rock from gorge to gorge and was so narrow that two caravan camels could barely pass; the cut is now bypassed by the main E90 road. The total length of the narrows, where railway, main road, and river run squeezed together between rock walls, is seventy kilometers from Ulukisla in the north to Gulek in the south.
The pass assumed importance when Asia Minor was a province of the Persian Empire; the Royal Road that supposedly connected Sardis in ancient Lydia with Susa in ancient Persia ran through the gates, and one branch of the Silk Road went from there to Istanbul. It was a key obstacle to the invasion of Persia from the west, and Alexander of Macedon described the desertion of the gates by the Persian defenders (333 BCE) as the most amazing piece of luck in his entire career. The Cilician Gates has remained a major trade route ever since; the Byzantine fortress of Loulon defended approaches from the north, and a chain of ruined Seljuk caravansaries or inns is still visible along the road. The first Crusaders under Baldwin of Boulogne used the pass in 1097, but subsequent Crusaders, aware of the possibilities of ambush, used sea passage or alternative passes. Today the railway is little used, but the multilane highway is continuously and heavily employed by commercial traffic carrying goods from the refineries and steelworks at Iskenderun, the factories at Adana, and the free port at Mersin to the interior.
Further Reading
Green, Peter. (1974) Alexander of Macedon. London: Pelican Books.
Flavius Arrianus (Arrian). (1976) The Campaigns of Alexander. Trans. by Aubrey de Selincourt. London: Penguin.
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