Adım Adım Amasya

Adım Adım
Amasya

A guide that takes you street by street through a city built at the foot of Harşena, on both banks of the Yeşilırmak. 55 monuments, four routes, a real map — and four games. Adım adım means “step by step”.

📍 All the stops 🗺️ Map 🎲 Games

or scroll — and watch the ages change ↓

301 BC

Tombs split from the rock

In the administrative vacuum that opened in Anatolia after the death of Alexander the Great, the Kingdom of Pontus grew strong and, in 301 BC, under Mithridates Ktistes, made Amaseia its capital. In this period the city was enclosed by walls, and the Rock Tombs of the Kings were made in the steep cliffs of Harşena.

They are not simple niches carved into the rock. Beneath a huge arch, with corridors cut all round them, they are monumental masses split from the mountain and standing free — you can walk around some of them. In front of them is a broad terrace cut into the rock, with a stepped path leading up to it. The one with the largest façade is the tomb of Mithridates I.

Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 11 · notes 72, 74 — form: the Site Management Plan (UNESCO nomination file) and archive photographs

66 BC

Rome's metropolis

At the end of the long wars between Pontus and Rome, the city fell to Rome in 66 BC, and its walls were largely destroyed. But in the Roman period it took the title of “Metropolis” and became the centre of a province.

Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 13 · notes 79, 80

4 April 1075

Into Turkish hands

After Manzikert (Malazgirt), Danişmend Gazi laid the foundations of one of the first Turkmen principalities to be established in Anatolia. According to Tuncer Baykara, judging by the day of conquest that was later celebrated, the city passed to the Turks on 4 April 1075, at the hands of İltekin Gazi.

Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 16 · notes 90, 91

1143 – 1174

Seljuk walls

After about a century of Danishmendid rule, the city came firmly under the Anatolian Seljuk state in the reigns of Sultan Mesud I in 1143 and Sultan Kılıçarslan II in 1174. In the reign of Alaeddin Keykubad the city was furnished with walls and fortresses.

Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 18 · notes 101–103

late 14th century

City of princes

Hard pressed by Kadı Burhaneddin, Ahmed Bey, the Emir of Amasya, asked the Ottomans for help; Prince Çelebi Mehmed, arriving with a force of thirty thousand, took the city, and the Ottoman period began. Here the princes served as sanjak governors and learned how to govern the state.

Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 21 · note 122

12 June 1919

“All Amasya is at your command”

After landing at Samsun, Mustafa Kemal Paşa came by way of Havza to Amasya on 12 June 1919. At his welcome, the words of the Mufti of Amasya, Hacı Tevfik Efendi, became one of the clearest signs of the support the people of Anatolia would give to the National Struggle: “Paşa! All Amasya is at your command… May your holy war be blessed!”

Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya, p. 25 · notes 152, 153

Where to start?

The city has been divided into four themed routes. Each route follows a story. Every stop page on all four routes is ready. 46 stops, 37 separate pages: some monuments lie on two routes at once.

🗺️ See them all on the map 📍 All the stops (55) 📜 The Amasya Passport

If you are in the city: when you arrive in front of a stop, a seal is stamped in your passport; finish a route and your certificate opens.

Learn by playing

The questions are not made up: all the dates and inscriptions come from the sourced pages on this site.

Stories of the city

Stories that fall outside the routes, but that you need in order to understand Amasya.

This site is under construction. The texts are being written one by one, based on the book Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya and the source archive. The narrator scenes are dramatisations; legends are presented separately from documents.