Osmaniye

History

Located on the eastern edge of the cukurova plain in the foothills of the Nur Mountains, the gateway between Anatolia and the Middle East, Osmaniye is on the Silk Road, a place of strategic importance and has been a settlement for various civilizations including the Hittites, Persians and Romans. The Islamic presence in the area was first established by the Abbasid Caliph Harun Rashid, auxiliaries in his army being the first Turks to fight in Anatolia. They obviously took a shine to the place and following the Turkish victory over the Byzantines at Malazgirt in 1071 waves of Turkish conquest began. The Nur Mountains were settled by the Ulasli tribe of the Turkmens. The Ulasli remained the local power through into the period of the Ottoman Empire and were even involved in the Celali uprisings, during a period of uncertain Ottoman rule in the 17th century. Eventually, in 1865 the Ottoman general Dervis Pasa was charged with bringing law and order to cukurova. He established his headquarters in the Osmaniye villages of Dereobasi, Fakiusagi,Akyar and brought the Ulasli down from the high mountains to the village of Haciosmanli. This eventually became the province of Osmaniye.

Osmaniye today

Today Osmaniye is a conservative country town, the centre of a rich agricultural region well watered by the Ceyhan river system and well-known for growing peanuts. There is plenty of forest too and much of the surrounding countryside is very attractive. However, the town was made a provincial capital in 1996 and as such is now receiving some investment in infrastructure, and beginning to feel more like a city then a rural market town. There is a ring road, and taller buildings. Many people in Turkey still feel that Osmaniye should not have been made a province. The cuisine is typical of the region; kabab, salgam (a drink made of pickled turnips), and baklava. The local specialty is a kind of bread/pretzel called simit and tirsik, togga... etc. In summer the weather is very hot, and most residents of Osmaniye try to escape either to the nearby Mediterranean coast or up into the Nur mountains. The plateau of Zorkun is a popular mountain retreat in summertime. There are also 2 Roman cities remaining, consisting of roads and antique theater, called Hieropolis and Kastabala. The city is only 25 km from the Mediterranean coast of DOrtyol.

Karatepe-Aslantas open air museum

The Hittite fortress of Karatepe-Aslantas (used to be in the province of Adana, now Osmaniye’s Kadirli district) was founded in the 8th century B.C. by Azatiwatis, ruler of the plain of Adana as a frontier castle against the wild hordes lurking in the north. He named it Azatiwadaya. A caravan road leading from the southern plains up-to the Central Anatolian plateau, skirted it on the west, the Ceyhan river (antique Pyramos, now Aslantas dam lake) on the east. Two monumental T-shaped gate-houses flanked by high towers gave access to the citadel. An entrance passage between two towers led up to a double-leafed wooden gate, which swung on basalt pivot-stones, from there to two lateral chambers and further on into the citadel. In a holy precinct at the inner entrance of the southwest gate stood the monumental statue of the Storm-God on its double bull-suckle. The inner walls of the gate-houses were adorned with sculptures of lions and sphinxes, inscriptions and relieves, depicting cultural, mythological and daily-life scenes carved on blocks of basalt. A bilingual text in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian, the longest known texts in these languages, was inscribed on slabs of each gate with a third one in Phoenician on the Divine Statue, constituting the key for the final decipherment of the Hieroglyphs, being thus reminiscent of the famous Rosetta Stone.

After the fall of the Hittite Empire (which ruled Central Anatolia in the 2nd millennium B.C.), due to the invasion of the so-called "Sea People" around 1200 B.C., small kingdoms such as those of Malatya, SakcagOzu, Maras, Kargamis, and Zincirli, sprang up south of the Taurus mountain range. They were conquered and destroyed in the course of various Assyrian campaigns. The reign of Asatiwatas coincides with this period. His citadel was probably looted and burnt down to the ground by Salmanassar V around 720 B.C. or by Asarhaddon around 680 B.C.