Amasya Castle (Harşena Castle): History, the Cilanbolu Tunnel and the Royal Rock Tombs

From whatever direction one enters Amasya, there comes a moment when one raises one's head and looks to the north. On the steep rock of one of the mountains that squeeze the valley from both sides stands a structure as old as the city itself: Harşena Castle. Seen from below, it is hard to tell where the wall ends and where the rock begins; stone and rock are mingled here. Strabo, the ancient geographer whom the city produced, described his homeland as "both a city and a fortress," and two thousand years later a visitor who makes his way to the castle can confirm the same description with his own eyes.

The history of the castle cannot be tied to a single founder or a single age. Used without interruption from the Early Bronze Age to the last centuries of the Ottoman Empire, the structure bears the traces of many dynasties, from the Pontic kings to the Danishmendids, from the Seljuks to the Ottoman princes. It is also one of the places where legend and record are most thoroughly mixed; in telling the story of the castle, therefore, what is firmly known has been kept as far as possible apart from the accounts added later.

Amasya Castle at a Glance

• Name: Amasya Castle, Harşena Castle; in some sources Harşene or Harşana.
• Location: North of the Amasya city center, on the rocks of Mount Harşena on the northern bank of the Yeşilırmak.
• Height: The rock on which the castle sits is reckoned at 700 meters above sea level and 300 meters above the Yeşilırmak. The UNESCO nomination, however, describes Harşena as a limestone mass 272 meters high, in the shape of a pointed cone; the two figures rest on different criteria.
• Foundation: Tourist literature ties the founding to the Early Bronze Age (about 3200 BC), but no find in the city center proves so early a settlement; most of the present walls and structures belong to the Hellenistic, Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman periods.
• Defense: Eight defensive tiers descending to the bank of the Yeşilırmak, and four gates.
• Protection status: In 2015 it was placed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List under the name "Mount Harşena and the Rock-tombs of the Pontic Kings," in the mixed (cultural and natural) category.

The Origin of Its Name

On the name of the castle the sources do not speak with one voice; for this reason it is more honest to set them all down in turn. The nomination text submitted to UNESCO writes that the word "Harşena" is believed to come from the Hattic expression "Harşuwana-Arşuawana," which means "city of beautiful, blessed running water." This explanation is presented in the text as a belief, not as firm evidence.

Two separate traditions also attach the castle to different persons: according to Arab historians the castle was built by "the Turkish ruler Karsan Khan," and according to Western historians by Mithridates, King of Pontus. The building of the Inner Castle is linked with Mithridates in most written sources, and the years around 250 BC are indicated for this. Some historians, on the other hand, say that the castle took the name Harşana, Harşena because its builder was the commander Karsan or Harsana. Local tradition also ties the name to a King Harşena, but no such name appears in the known sequence of Pontic kings, so this remains a legend. There is no document with which to say that such-and-such a person built the castle. That the structure is an ensemble of layers spread over the centuries is, however, confirmed by the excavations.

Geographic Position and the Structure of the Rock

Amasya lies in the interior of the Central Black Sea Region, at the junction of the roads that connect the Black Sea coast with the interior of Anatolia. The city is founded in a deep valley opened by the Yeşilırmak between mountains that extend east to west and reach two thousand meters in height. The Yeşilırmak flows in curves toward the east and, joining the Tersakan Stream at the city, forms a broad basin. The cone-shaped limestone mass rising north of the basin has been known for thousands of years as Mount Harşena and dates to the Jurassic. The valley floor lies at about 400 meters above sea level; part of the castle's 700-meter elevation comes from this base.

On the summit of the mountain there are two flat areas; to its south are bluffs that reach down to the river. The eastern and western slopes too are steep and rocky. This topography gave the ancient city the defensive advantage of an almost natural fortress. The landscape formed by the castle and the royal tombs together with the Yeşilırmak and its valley is justified in the UNESCO nomination as a natural-cultural landscape. Because of the tombs, the region is also called "the Valley of the Kings" in foreign literature.

The Castle That Strabo Saw

The oldest and most valuable witness to the castle is Strabo. The years in which he lived are given differently in the sources: in some places about 63 BC to AD 19, in others 64 BC to 24. In Book XII of his work Geography he describes Amaseia, the city where he was born, in a large and deep valley on the bank of the Iris (Yeşilırmak). According to him the city combines the advantages of both a city and a fortress: there is a high, steep rock descending to the river; on one side of it a wall encircles the city along the riverbank, and on the other a wall climbs to the peaks. There are two peaks, joined by a very narrow neck; the climb from the riverbank to the neck is five or six stadia on either side, and from the neck to the peaks a steep slope of one more stadion remains, which is superior against any attack. Within this enclosure are the palaces and monuments of the kings.

Strabo also writes that there are water reservoirs in the rock, that the city does not go short of water thanks to two pipe-shaped channels hollowed out toward the river and lengthwise, and that there are two bridges over the river; he adds that Amaseia was formerly given to kings but in his own time was a province. The positions of the cisterns, the channels and the bridges are distinct enough to be compared with present-day Amasya.

The Three Parts of the Castle

The castle consists of three parts: the Inner City (Hatuniye Neighborhood), the Maidens' Palace (Kızlar Sarayı) and the Upper Castle. The excavation director Emine Naza Dönmez describes the same arrangement from top to bottom: the Upper Castle, known as Harşena Castle; the Maidens' Palace, the terrace in front of the Royal Rock Tombs; and the Lower Palace, where the Hatuniye Neighborhood now stands. The UNESCO nomination names the same parts the Upper Castle, the Middle Castle (the Maidens' Palace and Royal Rock Tombs area) and the Inner Castle (the Enderun Castle); the three namings correspond to one another.

The Upper Castle (Harşena)

This section at the summit of the castle is known for the use of cut stone at the highest point and rubble stone in the curtain walls. The walls of the lower terraces on the slope are mostly of rubble stone, while the finer walls higher up are of cut stone; the difference reflects both the building periods and the weight each section carried in the defense. The total length of the walls surrounding Mount Harşena is about two kilometers, and these walls were built in the Ancient, Medieval and Modern ages. The Cilanbolu cistern tunnel lies at the summit. It is also the place where the castle's dizdars, that is, its guards, lived; although almost no trace of structures is visible on the surface today, the excavations are bringing new layers to light. It is written that the remains of an Ottoman-period neighborhood lie underground, and also that three churches of the Eastern Roman period are believed to lie beneath the ground; this last statement is a belief, not information confirmed by excavation.

The Maidens' Palace and the Royal Rock Tombs

The Maidens' Palace is, by its name, a surprising place at first glance, because this locality is the region where both the rock tombs of the Pontic kings and the palace used by the Ottoman princes stand. The palace area contains Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and medieval walls side by side. Part of the Hellenistic walls still stands today; these are isodomic walls, built of regular, thick, bossed cut stones. In the excavations that Istanbul University has carried on since 2009, remains of Roman, Eastern Roman, Seljuk and Ottoman buildings are being uncovered.

In the Ottoman period the palace, built in the 15th century by Firuz Ağa, the chief gatekeeper of Bayezid II, was used for more than 150 years by princes, ladies and governors; in the 16th century a palace in which İsfendiyar Çelebi lived is mentioned. The locality had earlier also been used as a military base in the time of the Candaroğulları principality. The traveler Hans Dernschwam writes of the palace that its outer part was of stone and its inner part of brick and timber, and that the Ottomans pitched their army tents here. The palace was used until 1580.

Two baths that remain standing in the area (the Küçük Hamam and the Büyük Hamam) can be visited today. According to a study of the Great Bath, since the building has no inscription its date of construction and its patron are unknown; the bath consists of a cooling room, a warm room, a hot room, a furnace and a water tank, and rough-hewn stone, rubble stone and brick were used in its walls. The UNESCO nomination dates the two baths to the 14th and 15th centuries. In the same area the Ceylan Road and the Ceylan Tunnel are also mentioned; the claim that the Ceylan Tunnel reaches the river has not been supported by excavation.

The Lower Castle: Hatuniye

In this section, which extends along the bank of the Yeşilırmak, Amasya houses, baths and mosques were built on top of the ancient walls. The section covers an area of about 800 meters between the Station Bridge and the Government Bridge; 1,200 meters is also given for the length of the riverside walls. This section, set on eight terraces parallel to the mountain, can be entered from the Alçak Bridge, the Station Bridge, the Madenüs Bridge opposite the Sultan Bayezid Mosque, and the Government Bridge. The Maidens' Palace is separated from Hatuniye by the railway. The four gates of the castle are called Helkıs, Saray, Midenos and Meydan; in the sources Belkıs is also seen written for Helkıs and Maydonos for Midenos.

Most of the buildings in Hatuniye are Ottoman dwellings two hundred years old: houses rising above a basement, with a timber frame filled with mud brick or brick, two or three stories high, with double-leaf wooden doors opening onto narrow streets, bay windows and sliding windows. Along the river there are also the Yalıboyu Houses, built in the form of mansions; they are enclosed by high walls, have in their courtyards a well, a hearth and pomegranate, mulberry or jujube trees, and their harem sections lean against the castle walls. It is also said that remains of the Hittite age lie beneath this area; no find confirming this has been reported from the city center.

The Royal Rock Tombs

When Amasya became the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus, the monumental tombs of the kings were carved into the surface of the limestone rock on the southern slope of Mount Harşena. Because the sources count different areas, the number of the tombs varies; within the castle walls 9 rock tombs are counted, and in the valley and around the city 21. The five monumental tombs in the Maidens' Palace region are attributed, in order, to Mithridates I, Ariobarzanes, Mithridates II and III, and Pharnaces I. The tombs are in two groups: tombs I, II and III lie in the east near the well-preserved Hellenistic walls, tombs IV and V in the west. The entrances of the burial chambers open high up and can be reached only by staircases cut into the rock.

The largest of the tombs is tomb V, attributed to Pharnaces I. The rock inscription above it records that the commander of the castle (phrourarchos), Metrodoros, dedicated an altar and a flower bed to the king. It had been planned to open corridors around the tombs and so give the impression of free-standing structures in the rock, but the corridors could be completed only in tombs II, III and IV. The UNESCO nomination ties the unfinished work on tomb V to Pharnaces's decision to make Sinope (Sinop), which he had recently conquered, his capital; this is an interpretation, not a document. The facade arrangements, dimensions and architectural development of the tombs are described in detail in the article King Rock Tombs.

Cilanbolu: The Cistern Tunnel Inside the Castle

The most curiosity-provoking structure of the castle is the Cilanbolu tunnel, carved into the rock in the middle of the Upper Castle. Strabo's description, which speaks of water reservoirs inside the rock and of two channels hollowed out of it, is associated with this structure; many writers who passed through the city, from Evliya Çelebi to the travelers of the 19th century, also mentioned the tunnel. Among the people it was told that the tunnel descended to Leğen Kaya, or even to the Yeşilırmak, and that it had been opened so that the king could slip away secretly during a siege. The excavation and cleaning campaign carried out by the Amasya Museum between 2 June and 10 October 2008 put these accounts to the test. The tunnel, carved into the bedrock in a south-north direction with a slope of about 35 percent, was measured at a total length of 205 meters; at the end of 356 steps a water chamber 6.90 meters long and 2.75 meters deep was reached. The tunnel has no exit opening to the river or to the outside. The excavation report assesses the structure as a water cistern, a significant part of which was carved into the rock in the period of the Kingdom of Pontus and whose upper parts were built in later periods; it also finds baseless the Leğen Kaya claim and the story of a diver lowered into the tunnel who vanished.

The Zindan Cistern, on the steep slope northwest of the Maidens' Palace locality, was likewise opened in the rock-tunnel technique, in vaulted form and with stone steps, like Cilanbolu; both are counted among the monumental cisterns dated to the 1st century BC. For Cilanbolu, figures that do not agree with one another circulate in print, from 150 steps to a length of 300 meters. The comparison of these figures with the excavation report, the Hellenistic and later phases of the tunnel, the finds recovered from the fill and the old legends are treated in detail in the article Cilanbolu Tunnel and the Rock-Cut Water Routes of Harşena Castle.

A Brief Summary of the Periods

• The Bronze Age and before: The first settlements in Amasya may have been established in the Maidens' Palace locality and on the terrace to its south; when the urbanization process of the castle began has not yet been established. The many mounds within the province of Amasya show settlements of these ages, but no find proving so early a settlement has come from the city or the castle. In the Hittite age Amasya is thought to have lain on the border of the Land of Hatti, within the Upper Land, and to have possibly been Hakmis, one of the Upper Land's important cities; this view too has not been supported by archaeological evidence. In the excavations, fragments of painted pottery with vegetal and geometric motifs and Scythian-type spurred bronze arrowheads were found; these point to a settlement under the influence of Persian (Achaemenid) rule politically and Phrygian culture traditionally (5th century BC). That Herodotus never mentions Amasya is taken to mean that the settlement was not yet of any note. In 2008, in the rescue excavation of the Museum Director Celal Özdemir, a fragment of a painted jug with festoon decoration came out of the section of the terraces extending to the Yeşilırmak; this piece is regarded as proof that the Iron Age settlement extended toward the river. A fragment of a terracotta rhyton (an ancient vessel in the form of an animal's head or body) obtained from the museum excavations is also noteworthy.
• The Kingdom of Pontus: The starting date varies according to the sources: the UNESCO nomination says 301 BC and writes that the kingdom was founded by the Persian satrap Mithridates I Ktistes, who chose Amaseia as capital; other sources give 281 BC, the 3rd century BC, or the span from 333 BC to 26 BC. The rock tombs and the sturdy walls bear the stamp of this period; the water system Strabo describes is also tied to this period. In the time of Mithridates VI Eupator the kingdom extended, besides present-day Türkiye, to the borders of Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Bulgaria and Greece. His son Pharnaces II was defeated by Caesar at Zela (Zile) in 47 BC; Caesar's words "I came, I saw, I conquered" were spoken at the end of this war.
• Rome and Byzantium: For the passage to Roman rule two dates stand out, 63 BC and 26 BC, and the castle was badly damaged in the Roman-Pontic wars; Roman rule lasts until AD 395; the riverside walls are dated to the Roman period. The castle was attacked, destroyed and repaired again many times under Persian, Roman, Pontic and Byzantine rule. Amasya gained importance as a bishopric in the 3rd century AD; the city was taken by the Arabs in 712, and a few years later Byzantine forces under Leo III (717-741) recaptured it. In the Upper Castle excavations a Byzantine church and an ancient fire altar were found beneath the area where an Ottoman mosque would later rise; this shows that the structures on the rock were reused in the service of different faiths.
• The Danishmendids and the Seljuks: The castle, then in Byzantine hands, passed to the Turks with the Danishmendid conquest of Amasya (1075) and underwent an important repair. The first Turkish settlement in the castle dates from the Danishmendid period (1072-1178). The Danishmendid Seyfeddin İsmail Khan (d. 1113) had the Enderun (Loğ Minare) Mosque built in the Lower Palace, in the present Hatuniye Neighborhood; this structure, the city's first great mosque, and its minaret have not survived. The Anatolian Seljuk Sultan Mesud I (1116-1156), for his part, repaired the Inner Castle in 1146 and had a madrasa, a bath and a palace on the riverbank built, chose Amasya as his center and lived in this palace. The mosque built by Danishmendoğlu Melik Gazi east of the castle, on the site of the present Şamlar Mosque, is counted the city's oldest Turkish building. Under the Seljuks the castle was an effective military center controlling the Samsun-Tokat road, and the city was called "Dârü'l-izz." The city also witnessed the Babai revolt begun by Baba İshak; Baba İlyas was captured and executed on the castle's bastions. After the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243 the Mongols took the city.
• The principalities and the early Ottomans: The emir Şadgeldi Paşa (1360-1382) of the Eretna period (1327-1381) had the castle repaired and had a mosque and a bath built in Harşena Castle; the repair is dated to 1369. Amasya's coming under Ottoman control is written as 1386; in some studies the Ottoman period is begun from 1393, and in another account from 1398, at the end of Bayezid I's struggle with Kadı Burhâneddin, when the city's government was left to his son Çelebi Mehmed. In the Ottoman period the Yıldırım Han Mosque, madrasa, bath and prison that Evliya Çelebi mentions were built around the Maidens' Palace and Harşena. After the Battle of Ankara in 1402 Çelebi Mehmed (Mehmed I) withdrew to Amasya and used it as a base against his brothers İsa and Süleyman; that he took refuge in the castle, fleeing Timur, is a local account. In 1402 Amasya was organized as the "sanjak of the princes"; twelve princes served here, and seven of them ascended the throne.
• The last centuries: The castle was used until the 18th century and afterward lost its military importance. There is also a statement that the castle was used until the 13th century; this does not agree with the others and has not been explained.

The list of repairs is also like a summary of the periods: after 1075 the Danishmend Ahmed Gazi, Mesud I (1146), Alâeddin Keykubad I (1222), Gümüşlüzade Tacettin Mahmud Çelebi (1319), Şadgeldi Paşa (1369), and in the Ottoman period Murad II, Mustafa Bey, the emir of Şehzade Ahmed (1511), and Hoca Ahmedpaşazade Ali Bey (1669). In the same list the repair by Murad II is written as "1149"; since Murad II reigned in the 15th century this is clearly a misprint and probably 1449 is meant, but I could not verify it.

The Castle as Travelers and Records Saw It

In the early 16th century the castle was staffed by a dizdar, a kethüda and fifty-seven guards. Inside the castle stood mud-brick houses in which the castle's servants lived; every morning and evening the sound of trumpet and drum rose from the castle toward the city. Dernschwam, who visited the city on 7 April 1555 with the Austrian embassy, also records a great fire that broke out on 14 April of the same year; the burned houses were quickly rebuilt. He describes the princely palace elsewhere, at the foot of the mountain, as a simple one-story brick building surrounded by gardens, and writes that Süleyman the Magnificent stayed there. That this description refers to the same building as the Maidens' Palace is not documented.

Evliya Çelebi, who came to Amasya in 1640, summarized the castle as follows: it has forty-one pentagonal towers; within it are palaces, arsenals, granaries, water cisterns and water channels descending to the Tozanlı Water; the underside of the castle is full of caves. He also relates that during the attacks of the Celali bandits the wealthy of the city carried their valuables into the castle and hid them there. This description suggests a much broader and busier state of the castle than is seen today. Most of the structures that have left no trace on the summit were in those years before the eyes of travelers.

Excavation Finds

Systematic work in the castle began in 2006. Between 2006 and 2008 archaeological excavations were carried out in the Maidens' Palace area and in the castle, the survey, restitution and restoration projects of the castle walls were prepared in 2007, and most of the walls were repaired. Since 2009 the excavations have been carried on under Emine Naza Dönmez of the Department of Art History at Istanbul University; the work continues in two areas, Harşena (the Upper Castle) and the Maidens' Palace. In the first season a geophysical (magnetic) method was used to determine the building foundations beneath the soil. North of the cannon tower in Harşena, two cultural phases, pre-Ottoman and Ottoman, and a built-up area showing four different architectural periods, established by a terracing system suited to the slope of the land, were identified.

The finds also illuminate the daily life of the castle. In the 2015 work, in front of the northwestern walls, four gold coins were found, three of the time of the Mamluk Sultan Qaytbay (1468-1496) and one of Tumanbay (1516-1517). Dönmez writes that these coins, called "ashrafi," are important both for the history of Amasya and for Ottoman-Mamluk relations; two of them are in the Amasya Museum. How the coins came to Amasya is not certain; Dönmez suggests that soldiers from the sanjak of Amasya who took part in Selim the Grim's Egyptian campaign may have brought the ashrafi back with them along with other goods. This is a supposition.

In 2010 a hoard containing 6,663 pul coins came to light in the Maidens' Palace area; only three of these coins are stamped, and none bears a legible stamp. Because of the mining resources in and around Gümüşhacıköy, Amasya was an important mint center for the Ottomans. The nearness of the hoard and the Mamluk coins has suggested the idea that the mint may have been here. In 2018, in the area of the Yıldırım Han Mosque, a silver coin struck in Amasya in the name of Sultan Selim I was found; on its obverse "Sultan Selim Şah" is read, and on its reverse the phrase stating that it was minted in Amasya and the date 918 (1512). The excavation team writes that these finds support the same idea. In the 2019 season the excavation director announced that they had found the remains of a mosque about 700 years old, which they thought might date to the time of Yıldırım Bayezid, together with a street and a possible zawiya. According to Dönmez, the mosque is the one Yıldırım Bayezid had built in the castle when the Ottomans took Amasya; Evliya Çelebi and Hüseyin Hüsameddin also speak of such a mosque. Because many nails and pieces of wood were found in the area, the building is thought to have been a square-plan timber or timber-posted mosque with its minaret in the northwest; beyond it came kitchen and storage remains and military material such as pots, armor ornaments and archers' rings. Between 2009 and 2021, 216 pipe bowls and pipe-bowl fragments were found; these date to the 17th-19th centuries.

The castle's most recent repairs and restoration work were carried out in 2011-2013. In terms of protection, Mount Harşena is registered as a first-degree natural site, and the area of 350,000 square meters covering the mountain, the castle, the Maidens' Palace area and the Inner Castle including Hatuniye is registered as a first-degree archaeological site. Of the 137 registered historic buildings in the city, 64 lie within the boundaries of the Hatuniye Neighborhood; the Helkıs Neighborhood on the eastern slope of the castle is also counted as an urban site, and there are 16 registered traditional timber buildings here. In the ranking of the thirteen most magnificent castles of Türkiye published by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2018, Amasya Castle came third. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization are responsible for protection.

Location and Access

The castle is in the Hatuniye Neighborhood, and the castle on Mount Harşena, north of the Amasya city center, is climbed from the city. The Maidens' Palace and rock tombs region is at the southern foot of the castle, within walking distance of the city center; it lies above the Inner Castle, below the Royal Rock Tombs.

On access to the Upper Castle the sources diverge. A travel writer writes that the castle is about 300 meters above the city, that the climb on foot is about 3.5 kilometers of uphill road and takes roughly an hour, and that one can also go up by taxi (2019). Another source says that the summit cannot be reached directly by vehicle and that part of it must be done on foot. It would be wise to ask about the current situation before going.

Visiting Tips

Information on hours and fees changes often; what follows should therefore be read as examples, not as firm rules.

• Hours: A news report of 2024 gives the castle as open to visitors from 09.00 to 19.00 in the summer period and from 08.00 to 17.00 in the winter period. An educational site writes 08.00-17.00 every day of the week. Since the hours end early in the evening, if one is planning around sunset it is necessary to learn the current hours beforehand.
• Fee: The entrance to the inner castle, where the Royal Rock Tombs and the Maidens' Palace are, is charged. A travel article gives the entrance fee in 2018 as 6 TL, a news report in the summer of 2024 as 50 TL; on whether the Museum Card is valid, too, the sources contradict each other. It is safest to ask about the fee and the card at the entrance.
• Excavation areas: On the left side of the entrance gate the areas where excavation work continues can be seen; directions should be followed in these areas.

Places to See Around the Castle

The castle can be both the beginning and the end of a tour. The following structures lie along the same route:

• The Royal Rock Tombs: At the southern foot of the castle, the monumental tombs of the Pontic kings.
• The Alçak Bridge: Built in the Roman period to connect the castle with the other bank of the river; in 1865 the governor Ziya Paşa had piers built over the arches of the bridge.
• The Princes' Museum: A two-story timber building at the foot of the Alçak Bridge, at the foot of the Royal Rock Tombs, on the old walls on the bank of the Yeşilırmak.
• The Yalıboyu Houses: Historic houses built in the form of mansions along the river.
• The other bank of the river: The Darüşşifa (1309), the Bayezid II Complex (1486), the Kapı Ağa Madrasa (1488) and the Gümüşlü Mosque (1326) form a single composition with the castle, Mount Harşena and the historic bridges. The Amasya Museum, the Hazeranlar Mansion, the Bimarhane and the Ferhat and Şirin Museum are also short-distance stops in the city center.
• The Aynalı Cave: A rock tomb with a polished facade about 3.3 kilometers from the city center; according to the common account, the monumental tomb of a Mithraic priest left from the Hellenistic period.

Record and Legend

The castle is among the structures most prone to producing stories; it is therefore necessary to separate what is documented from what is disputed. What is documented is this: Strabo's description of the castle and the water channels; the Pontic royal tombs and the Metrodoros inscription above the tomb of Pharnaces; the results of the 2008 excavation of Cilanbolu (205 meters, 356 steps, a water chamber of 6.90 x 2.75 meters); and the coins, mosque remains and pipe bowls that came out of the excavations.

What is legend or disputed is who had the castle built (Karsan Khan, Mithridates, Harsana), that Cilanbolu was the king's secret escape route, that the tunnel descends to the Yeşilırmak or to Leğen Kaya (the excavation report refutes this), the diver story, and the exact date of the castle's founding. Tying the unfinished corridors of the tombs to Pharnaces's moving his capital to Sinope is likewise an interpretation. To know which stone rests on a document and which on a story makes touring the castle, looking down on Amasya from above, more meaningful.

Sources

Primary sources

• Strabo, Geography (Geographica), Book XII, chapter 3, paragraph 39.
• Abdizade Hüseyin Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2007 (by way of Doğanbaş and Dönmez).

Academic studies

• Doğanbaş, M., "Amasya Merkez Harşena Kalesi Cilanbolu Tüneli 2008 Yılı Kazı ve Temizlik Çalışması," Müze Çalışmaları ve Kurtarma Kazıları Sempozyumu 18, 2010. kulturvarliklari.gov.tr
• Koşan, D., "Amasya Kızlar Sarayı Büyük Hamamı ve Korumaya Yönelik Öneriler," Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli Üniversitesi SBE Dergisi, 2024.
• Canıbek, F. S., Amasya Harşena Kalesi ve Kızlar Sarayı Kazıları Lüle Buluntuları, master's thesis, Bursa Uludağ University, 2021.

Official sources

• Kültür Portalı (Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism), entries "Amasya Kalesi" and "Kızlar Sarayı." kulturportali.gov.tr
• Republic of Türkiye Amasya Municipality, "Harşena Kalesi" and "Amasya'nın Tarihi" pages.
• Republic of Türkiye Amasya Governorship, "Kaleler" page.
• UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Tentative Lists: "Mount Harşena and the Rock-tombs of the Pontic Kings" (2015). whc.unesco.org
• Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "Amasya" entry.

Other sources

• Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Amasya Kalesi" page.
• Golcheshmeh, S., "Harşena Kalesi / Kızlar Sarayı," Online Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi, 2020; Baldıran, Ş., "Amasya Kalesi," Online Türkiye Turizm Ansiklopedisi, 2019. turkiyeturizmansiklopedisi.com
• Dönmez, E. N., "Amasya Harşena Kalesi ve Kızlar Sarayı Kazılarında Ele Geçen Altın Memluk Sikkeleri Üzerine Düşünceler," Türk Tarih Kurumu. ttk.gov.tr
• Dönmez, Ş., "Öntarih ve Klasik Dönemlerde Amasya: Güncel Arkeolojik Bulgular," TÜBA-AR 16, 2016. dergipark.org.tr
• Anadolu Ajansı, "Amasya'da 700 yıllık cami kalıntısı ve sokak bulundu," 1 September 2019.
• Travel sources: Gezgince (Amasya Kalesi page), Gezer Döner (Amasya Kalesi, 2019), Karadeniz Gazetesi ("Amasya Harşena Kalesine gitmeden önce bilinmesi gerekenler").
• Castles.nl, "Amasya Castle"; Kültür Envanteri, "Amasya Kalesi".
• Vikipedi, "Amasya Kalesi" and "Harşena Dağı" entries (supporting source).