Yumurtalık

The port has a long history, at least to 2000BC. Hittite pottery of the 17th century BC has been found in the mound of Zeytinbeli Höyük.

This Cilician port city is mentioned by Pausanias under the name Aegeae (Greek: Αἰγέαι).[7] a name that appears also in its coinage,[8] It was located on the Gulf of Issus (modern Gulf of İskenderun). Tacitus' Annals XIII:8 also mentions it in its account of the war between Armenia/Rome and Iberia/Parthia. Apollonius of Tyana (c. 15 – c. 100) made his early studies at Aegeae, when the city was at its cultural height.

In Strabo's time it was a small city with a port.[9][10] Aegae was a Greek town, but the origin of it is unknown. A Greek inscription of the Roman period has been discovered there; and under the Roman dominion it was a place of some importance. Tacitus calls it Aegeae.[11] It was Christianised at an early date, and while no longer retaining a residential bishop, remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church, under the name of Aegeae.[12]

Under Rome, it was in the Roman province of Cilicia. The Saints Cosmas and Damian are mentioned in Christian hagiography to have been twin brothers, physicians who practiced their profession in Aegeae, accepting no payment for their services, and who eventually suffered martyrdom under Diocletian.[13]

A view of the busy port of Laiazzo when Marco Polo visited it in 1271, as presented in Le Livre des Merveilles

In the Middle Ages, and particularly in the 13th century, Aegeae grew to become an important harbour city of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. The Venetians called Aegeae Aiazzo or (incorporating the initial of the definite article) Laiazzo, and it became known locally as Ayas (Armenian: Այաս).[14] The fall of Acre[15] and the silting up of the harbour of Tarsus, together with the advantage of Ayas's good roads eastward, led to the city's becoming the principal centre of trade between West and East.[16] Numerous treaties were negotiated in which the Armenian kings granted various trade privileges to several Italian city-states.[17]

Between 1266 and 1322 raids by Mamluks and Turkmen in the area caused only minor disruptions in mercantile activities. Marco Polo disembarked here to begin his trip to China in 1271, he reportedly described it as a “city good for good trade,” adding that “all spices, silk, gold and wool from inland were carried to this town.”[18]

The Battle of Laiazzo in 1294, in which the navy of the Republic of Genoa overcame that of the Republic of Venice, is thought by some to be that in which Marco Polo later became a prisoner of the Genoese.[19][20] Within the city a quarter and trading post belonging to another of the Italian maritime republics, Pisa, was also established.[14]

The city was increasingly oppressed by the Mamluks and fell definitively into their hands in 1347, and when European trade routes with the East moved away from the Mediterranean, the city and its harbour lost importance.[14] Later, it was ruled by the Anatolian beylik of Ramadanids and in the 16th century, by the Ottoman Empire - eventually becoming part of the Turkish Republic.

In 1974, actor and film director Yılmaz Güney was arrested at Yumurtalık after a shooting incident that involved the murder of a Yumurtalık judge.

This site has both land and sea castles as well as a polygonal watchtower.

The single curving wall that constitutes the surviving land castle closes the tip of a small peninsula and is surrounded by the old town.[17] The now missing seaward wall, which once followed the shore to enclose the entire ward, was visible in the late 19th century.[25] Three round towers and a polygonal bastion survive as well as several casemates with loopholes (shooting ports) and at least seven embrasured windows. The basic plan of the fortress may have been laid in late antiquity, but extensive rebuilding belongs to the early period of Ottoman occupation, when it served as a minor port for the fleet of Suleiman the Magnificent.

The sea castle, which is located on an island about 400 meters east of the shore, consists of a tight cluster of five chambers encased in a massive irregular bastion.[17] Attached is a badly damaged circuit wall that surrounds most of the island. The vaulted rooms and enclosures were probably storage areas for merchandise destined for Europe. Although there are the distinct traces of late antique foundations (e.g., dovetail sockets), the peculiar masonry and construction techniques of the sea castle are those typically used during Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and may date from the reported re-fortification of the harbour in A.D. 1282.[26]

The watchtower, which is located 1.5 kilometers west of the land castle, was built by Suleiman the Magnificent in the mid 16th century with spolia from the nearby late antique city.[17] The lower two floors are covered with stone vaults. The loopholes in the walls of all three levels are identical in design to those in the nearby Ottoman fortress of Payas.

Yumurtalık Beach

Ayas Castle

Yumurtalık seen from Süleyman's Tower

The sea is clean and there is still a relaxed feel to this coast, so Yumurtalık is a holiday and weekend retreat for the people of Adana and of other cities in Çukurova region, who come to stay in seaside holiday flats generally built in compounds. There are also small hotels and guest houses for occasional visitor who can swim during the day and stroll along the beach or into the village in the evenings. The public beaches are not very well kept by the municipality, and they are sometimes covered with litter. But the holiday villages have private beaches which are kept clean and can also be used by outsiders for a small daily entrance fee.

A number of beaches in Yumurtalık are also the nesting places for loggerhead sea turtle caretta caretta breed. In fact the amount of beach-front holiday property is also part of the problem, even though the sand is clean the turtles won't lay eggs in these busy beaches with neon-lit discothèques blasting out all night. Adequate protection for the turtle's nesting habitat continues to remain a critical question. These endangered species lay eggs only in Yumurtalık, in Akyatan beach in neighboring Karataş district and in İztuzu Beach in Dalyan in southwestern Turkey. In fact, the very name Yumurtalık means, among other things, egg nest in Turkish language.

As well as tourism, the fertile agricultural lands that extend behind the coast are also a key factor in local economy and quality tomatoes, watermelons and other fruits and vegetables are extensively produced in Yumurtalık.

Just outside Yumurtalık is the Botaş oil and natural gas terminal. It is the end of the Kirkuk–Ceyhan Oil Pipeline running from Northern Iraq, which was opened in the 1970s. Refined oils are also imported through here by sea. Immediately to the southwest, there is the oil terminal for crude oil pipeline from Baku, opened in 2006. Further in the same direction, there is the recently built İsken Sugözü coal-fired power station.

There are 24 neighbourhoods in Yumurtalık District:[27]

• Ayas castle is reported to be the dock used by Marco Polo when travelling to China.
• The tower of Suleyman
• Loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) beaches.

There are also picnic areas, a beach and birdwatching facilities in the lagoon.

• Zenobios and Zenobia (d. c. 290), bishop of Aegae and his sister, martyrs and Eastern Orthodox saints

• Media related to Yumurtalık at Wikimedia Commons
• Official website (in Turkish)
• Gigacatholic with titular see incumbent biography links
• Adana Yumurtalık Free Zone
• Yumurtalık Photographs
• Extensive photographic survey and plans of the fortifications at Ayas / Yumurtalık