Travellers entering Amasya from the direction of Tokat see a thin line on the rock face to their left, just before the town begins. It curves along the slope, sinking into the rock in places and seeming to hang in the air in others, and local belief has long had an explanation for it: a decorator named Ferhat, it is said, cut through the mountain to win the girl he loved. The marks of his pickaxe are supposed to remain in the stone.

The marks on the stone point to a different story. It is the story of a water channel opened with iron chisels and arm strength, with its gradient calculated in advance and its course covered in places by stone vaults. The rescue excavation carried out by the Amasya Museum in 1997 and the survey prepared by Gazi University have shown that the canal was built in antiquity to carry water to the inhabitants of the town. The tale of Ferhat and Şirin, by contrast, belongs to a much wider geography and grew out of a tradition that stretches from Persian and Azerbaijani literature to Anatolian folk storytelling. The story of the canal reaches back centuries before the tale it took its name from, and it can be read only from the rock itself, the finds of the excavation and the measurements.

The Name and Present Condition of the Canal

In the official inventory the structure is registered as the "Ferhat Water Canal" (Ferhat Su Kanalı), at the Ferhat Arası locality within the Helvacı district, under first-degree monumental protection. According to the record, it is a water canal made by carving the rock at the edge of the main rock mass. The official description places it between the Late Hellenistic and Early Roman periods and explains its purpose as supplying water to the ancient settlement on the southern bank of the Yeşilırmak. The rock was cut, tunnels were opened where necessary, walls were built in places, and the line was advanced by the levelling method, following the slope of the land.

It takes its name from lying at the foot of Mount Ferhat. About two kilometres of the Ferhat Arası section, which runs parallel to the Amasya-Tokat highway, can be seen easily from the road. According to the records of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the canal begins at the third kilometre of the Amasya-Tokat highway. One travel writer advises looking carefully at the rock slopes on the left two or three kilometres after reaching the highway: the line of the canal shows itself a little above the foot of the rocks. The above-ground section was registered in 1975 by decision of the Supreme Council for Ancient Monuments, and in 1988 by decision of a conservation board. The structure bears no inscription and has no endowment deed; the records leave blank who commissioned it and who built it.

Route and Length

Different figures circulate in the sources for the length of the canal. The main reason is that the same line has been measured from different points and by different criteria. When the visible stretch, the section that continues as a tunnel inside the town, and the unexcavated distant ends are counted separately, the figures drift far apart.

  • 6 km: This is the measure most often seen in academic articles and tourism publications. It covers the stretch that can be followed visually from the prison locality in the Helvacı district to Kibrithane, the old industrial zone in the east of the town, and most of it continues today as a tunnel beneath the built-up area.
  • 1-1.5 km: This is an approximate figure given by a travel writer for the rock-cut stretch that can be followed on foot; the writer also describes how the canal is suddenly cut off in front of a quarry.
  • 675 metres: This is the section at Ferhat Arası that remains above ground, was registered, and was excavated and cleaned. The phrase "about seven hundred metres" in older writings corresponds to this stretch and does not describe the whole canal.
  • 18 km: This is the measure given in Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi. According to him, the canal starts in front of the Şahin Rock, about 15 km south of the town, passes in front of Ferhat Arası and Memi Dede, winds around the Gökmedrese, Şamice, Receb, Çeribaşı, Acem Ali, Uzun Mustafa, Gümüşlüzade, Mehmet Paşa and Sevadiye districts, and ends in a square-sectioned pit about four metres on each side at Kibrithane in the Beyazıtpaşa district. In Dursun Özden's rendering, the same source is given as 22 km.
  • 20-25 km: This is the total line described by present-day research and by the official inventory. The starting point is a spring at the Kırkgöz locality, within the boundaries of Meşeli Çiftliği village on the bank of the Çekerek Stream. The line is said to end in the Mehmet Paşa district. Özden's study gives the total length as 24 km. According to the same study, the Kırkgöz spring had a discharge of 40-50 litres per second in the 2000s; because the Çekerek bed has lowered over time, the spring now lies about five metres below ground level, and clean water still flows from it. The difference in height between the spring and the point of arrival is about 75 metres.

Hüsameddin's 18-22 km route and the canal remains found at Kırkgöz do not match exactly, and since the distant stretch of the line has not been excavated, no firm conclusion has been reached. Nothing has been found to show where and how the canal crossed the Yeşilırmak as it approached the town. This gap is the greatest obstacle to understanding the structure as a complete network.

Construction Technique

How the canal was built became clear only through the cleaning and rescue excavation carried out by the Amasya Museum in 1997. In the work led by museum director Ahmet Yüce and museum researchers Celal Özdemir and Muzaffer Doğanbaş, the 675-metre section at Ferhat Arası was cleared of rubble and earth fill. Işık Aksulu and Gediz Urak prepared the survey and conservation project, and the results were later published in the Journal of the Faculty of Architecture of Middle East Technical University. The excavation permit dates from September 1997; fieldwork and reporting continued between June 1997 and June 1998, and the cleaning and excavation itself was completed in thirty working days. For the survey, the polar coordinate method, which suits a curved and irregular structure, was chosen; 53 polygon points were set inside the canal, and the line was drawn in two separate stages, before and after the excavation.

In the sections cut into the limestone bedrock, the canal is on average 87-97 cm wide and about 120 cm high inside, vault included. About 80 cm above the floor, small ledges 20 cm wide have been carved on both sides. These are the seats on which the feet of the vault covering the canal rest. The cover is a brow-shaped vault made of rubble stones wedged together by the corbelling technique, and a lime-and-sand mortar was sprinkled between the stones. Where the canal crosses stream beds, vaults of roughly dressed stone 30 cm thick are supported by side walls 20 cm thick. In this section the inner width is 70 cm and the height varies between 125 and 150 cm according to the slope. At places that meet flood channels, the outer face of the canal was additionally strengthened with buttresses and the inner face was plastered.

On the inner surface of the canal there are traces of the local "horasan" mortar, made by mixing lime with ground fired clay and sand. On the floor, a layer about three centimetres thick containing brick dust has been exposed; researchers think it was applied to prevent water loss through cracks and fissures in the floor rock. The ten plaster samples examined differ from one another in layering and additives. Some contain coarse fired-clay fragments, others fine river sand. A sample taken from a side wall is less a deliberate plaster than a lime deposit left on the wall by centuries of flowing water. In places this deposit rises as high as 90 cm above the floor and has the consistency of travertine.

The line was laid out by the water-level method with a gradient of about seven per thousand, that is, 0.07 percent. This gradient matches the bed gradient of the Çekerek Stream, a tributary of the Yeşilırmak, as though the builders had taken the river's own slope as their measure. Like the Yeşilırmak, the canal advances in meanders. On steep slopes it makes turns of nearly 360 degrees, and the wall on the mountain side was trimmed back an extra 1.5 to 3 metres so that debris would not fall into the channel. As the rock was cut, wedges 40-60 cm long were driven into it diagonally to the canal, and several nails were set in line so that pieces could be split from the main block. The diagonal chisel marks about 2 cm deep that can still be seen on the sides of the canal show that the rock was cut with metal chisels by arm strength. Not a single tool was found in the excavation. In the excavated section it is possible to walk inside the canal.

On level rocky ground, small resting and settling basins were made 3-4 cm below the canal floor. The canal proceeds with stone vaults where streams cross it and with tunnels where it meets hard rock. Inside the town its trace can be seen in a tunnel remnant marked by a plaque at the entrance of the Amasya Imam Hatip High School. Only the upper vault of this tunnel reaches the surface, and it cannot be entered. In the Beyazıtpaşa district, pools and channels carved into the rock can be made out here and there. Another feature of the line is that it gathers the waters of other springs along its course. In this respect it resembles a water network more than a single canal.

Finds of the 1997 Excavation

During the excavation, pottery fragments of the 11th-12th centuries and a round pot lid with a single handle were found in and around the canal. Among the finds were also a wall cutting across the canal, a simple grave covered with fired-clay slabs set inside the channel, an arrowhead probably belonging to the Early Roman period, and Byzantine vessel fragments together with metal objects such as a hammer and a chain. The arrowhead was a small find ten centimetres long, with a round shaft and an oval head carrying two sharp wings, and it came from a depth of about 20 cm below the surface.

On the outer face of the canal the semicircular apse of a small chapel of the late Byzantine period, the 12th century, was uncovered. The apse wall, built of rubble stone, was 80 cm thick and 75-80 cm high, and its inner faces were coated with horasan plaster. On its floor lay a badly damaged geometric mosaic of white, brown, turquoise, yellow and green stones. Outside the southern walls of the apse, roof tiles with relief decoration and architectural ornaments of fired clay were found. These finds show that the line that once carried water to the town lost its function after the 12th century and that its surroundings were opened to settlement. In the same study some fifty plant species were counted around Ferhat Arası, and the locally endemic Sideritis amasiaca was recorded among them. This plant, which bears yellow flowers in the summer months, spreads over dry slopes and vineyards.

Date of Construction

The sources do not fully agree on the date of the canal. The tourism account of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism says "Late Hellenistic - Early Roman period," while the official cultural inventory gives the date of construction as the 1st century BC. The article by Aksulu and Urak notes that the construction technique of the canal resembles the workmanship of the Amasya Royal Rock Tombs, dated to the 2nd century BC, and for that reason argues that the structure was most probably built in the Hellenistic period to bring drinking water to the ancient town. According to the same article, the vaults at the stream crossings were repaired in the 3rd century AD. The basis for this is a three-line Greek inscription on a wall of the Ottoman-period Yörgüç Paşa Mosque that mentions the repair of the channels. The inscription is the subject of a short study, "The Aqueduct at Amasya in Pontus," published by O. and C. Nicholson in Anatolian Studies in 1993.

Some publications tie the structure directly to the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian (AD 117-138). Dursun Özden supports this view with a historical argument: the geographer Strabo, born in Amasya around 64 BC, describes his city, its fortress and the royal tombs but says nothing of a water canal cut into the rock. Özden takes this as a hint that the canal was built later. In reality this is a conclusion drawn from silence and cannot count as firm evidence. The same study argues that the Mithridatic Wars (86-63 BC) were an unsuitable period for such an undertaking, that in these wars Lucullus and Pompey besieged and destroyed the city, that after the Kingdom of Pontus ended in 63 BC the town was ruled by local kings tied to Rome, and that the Romans took over the administration in practice only in AD 7, whereas under Hadrian building activity continued, that Amasya was rebuilt in this period, and that the closed, gallery-like construction technique takes the canal back to the 1st-2nd centuries AD. In the Roman period the town, with its bridges linking the two banks, its agora, stadium and bouleuterion, had the look of a crowded and fully equipped ancient city. The Low Bridge (Alçak Köprü), the oldest bridge still standing today, belongs to this period as well.

The common ground of these views can be described as a structure that may be Hellenistic in origin, and that was used and repaired in the Roman period. There is neither a firm date of construction nor a foundation inscription. The phrase "two thousand five hundred years old" that circulates in older writings is not confirmed by any of the academic sources examined. Even the earliest dating points to the 2nd century BC, which means that the canal is at most about 2,200 years old. Dursun Özden, however, says that the line bears traces of 300 BC in its first construction, without showing the basis for this.

Amasya's Need for Water

Amasya is a narrow valley town enclosed like a bowl by hills rising 400-500 metres above river level. Bringing water to the town between the limestone cliffs has never been easy in any period. When the town became the capital of Pontus at the end of the 4th century BC (around 302-301), a new city began to be founded on the opposite side of the acropolis, the Harşena Fortress, to the south of the Yeşilırmak. Archaeological research indicates that the early settlement of the town may have begun at the Kızlar Sarayı locality and on the terraces south of it. This area, with the Royal Rock Tombs and strong walls, reaches the Yeşilırmak by a gentle, stepped topography and is also favourable for defence.

As the kingdom's territory grew and trade developed, the capital grew too. Towards the end of the 1st century BC the town's need for water is thought to have increased, and various measures to meet it are presumed to have been considered. Researchers note that no other ancient water structure has been identified in the southern part of the town before the first century. Until then the town's water may have been supplied from wells opened beside the river. It is plausible that the Yeşilırmak, which cannot be used as drinking water today, fed these wells thousands of years ago. The canal that started at Kırkgöz, for its part, brought clean spring water to the town independently of the river.

Abandonment of the Canal and Present Problems

The line, which lost its function after the 12th century, was erased from memory over the centuries. Today neither the head nor the end of the canal is intact. The line followed at Ferhat Arası runs into quarry installations at one point and is cut off. A journalist who walked this stretch wrote that within a few kilometres he came upon three separate quarries. Among the problems identified by the conservation project are functions such as a lime kiln, a car repair shop, a brick and tile depot and a sand-sieving plant standing between the canal and the road. The fractured structure of the rocks also threatens the permanence of the canal. According to the geological report, there are three main fault lines in the area, the fault surfaces are filled with carbonate clay 5-15 cm thick, and the sliding direction of the blocks follows the course of the canal. The limestone section of about 600 metres is called the Ferhatkaya Formation, and the rock height reaches 15-20 metres. The report recommends strengthening this section with rock anchors and cement injection.

In the concluding section of Dursun Özden's text it is emphasised that excavations must continue so that this water network can be brought fully to light. In the same piece Özden also records that the galleries and channels of the canal passing through the town show signs of disappearing.

The Conservation and Landscape Project

Although the canal had been registered as a monument and immovable cultural asset in 1975 and 1988, it was not the subject of any scientific study until 1997. On the initiative of the Amasya Governorate, the Amasya Municipality and the Amasya Museum, Aksulu and Urak of Gazi University were commissioned to prepare the "Amasya Ferhat Water Canal Conservation Proposals and Environmental Planning Project." The project did not stop at drawings. Thirteen samples taken from the canal and its surroundings were sent to the Turkish Cement Manufacturers' Association for mineralogical and morphological analysis, and the plasters were sent to the Istanbul Central Conservation and Restoration Laboratory of the Ministry of Culture. The plant cover was studied by Ferhan Karaer and the geological condition by the geologist Karahan Ökseloğlu.

The proposed interventions included filling cracks in the rock with lime, fired-clay dust and local calcite aggregate, consolidating lost binders on the floor and sides of the canal with a lime mixture containing casein, removing about 1,200 cubic metres of loose rock debris that might fall onto the canal, building a retaining wall about 65 metres long and 1.5 metres high, and opening drainage outlets at five separate points. A three-hectare area was foreseen for landscaping. The plan included a cafe-restaurant, seating areas, walking paths along the canal, a car park, a light pedestrian overpass linking the two sides, a botanical garden, and a sculpture at the Tokat-side entrance to the town that would keep the story of Ferhat and Şirin alive. In 2006, when the article was written, the project had not yet been carried out, and the authors hoped that the article would serve as a starting point for administrators and townspeople.

The Legend of Ferhat and Şirin

The tale of Ferhat and Şirin is not peculiar to Amasya. Its root lies in the narratives that formed around the Sasanian ruler Khosrow II Parviz (590-628), and from there in a literary chain that runs through Firdawsi's Shahnameh, Nizami's Khosrow and Shirin and Ali Şir Nevaî's Ferhâd u Şirin. In the Anatolian and Azerbaijani variant Khosrow is the son of Hürmüz Shah, the ruler of Amasya, and the real hero is Ferhat. There is no document for when the tale settled in Amasya; the only datum we have is that the narrative gave its own name to the canal and the mountain in this geography.

According to the local account related by the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Ferhat is a famous decorator who lived in the Persian era. While doing the decorations of the pavilion that Sultan Mehmene Banu had built for her sister Şirin, he sees Şirin, and the two fall in love. To keep Ferhat occupied, the Sultan sets as a condition that he pierce Elma Dağı (Apple Mountain) and bring water to the town. Just as Ferhat is about to finish the canal, the news arrives that Şirin has died; he hurls the pickaxe he holds into the air, the falling pickaxe strikes his head, and he dies on the spot. Finding her beloved dead, Şirin throws herself from the cliffs. According to the tale the two are buried where they died, and every spring a rose grows on each grave, but a black thorn bush that rises between them prevents the roses from joining. There are variants in which a "künk" (a clay pipe section) or a "gürz" (a mace) takes the place of the pickaxe, and tellings in which the bad news is brought by an old woman in disguise or by a nurse; there is no single "correct" text.

Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, the author of Amasya Tarihi, calls the attribution of a work made by tunnelling through rock in five places to Ferhat "utter naivety" and adds that such a work must have come from someone with vast wealth and means. Aksulu and Urak also write that the excavation findings give the legend no scientific basis; the same article records that in some folk accounts the canal is said to have been opened in nineteen days. For the origin of the name Hüsameddin lists several possibilities: since the rock and the mountain already bore the name Ferhat, the story may have transferred the name to the canal; the story of "Khosrow and Şirin" may have turned over time into "Ferhat and Şirin"; or Ferhad b. Efruhte, whom Khosrow Parviz made governor of the region, may have had the Amasya waterways built. Hüsameddin states that this last point is historically disputed. According to another account, when Melik Ahmed Danishmend Gazi besieged Amasya in 1075, Ferhat Gazi, one of his commanders, fell as a martyr on Mount Fon, and the mountain took his name; none of this has been proven. Some travel writers interpret the matter as follows: in a region where water is so plentiful, a lover who pierces mountains for a sip of water is far easier to remember than unnamed engineers, and the people chose the story rather than the names of the masters. The literary history and variants of the tale are told in detail in a separate article.

The Ferhat and Şirin Ashiks Museum and Surroundings

Right beside the canal, at the same locality, stands the Ferhat and Şirin Ashiks Museum (Ferhat ile Şirin Âşıklar Müzesi), built by Amasya Municipality in 2013. Besides Ferhat and Şirin, the museum presents the stories of Kerem and Aslı, Leyla and Mecnun, Mimar Sinan and Mihrimah Sultan, and Romeo and Juliet with models, sculptures, reliefs and light and music effects. A municipal official has described the museum as the only one in the world whose subject is love; this is the institution's own assessment. Visitor numbers have been reported as about 32,000 in 2016 and 76,000 in 2017. The symbolic grave of Ferhat and Şirin made in the museum garden is a monumental arrangement, not a historical tomb.

The canal itself is an open-air ruin. In places it has weathered, and quarries and road works have cut the line. On the same route lie the Royal Rock Tombs, Harşena Castle, the Low Bridge (Alçak Köprü) and the waterside houses on the bank of the Yeşilırmak.

Chronology

Late 4th century BC (about 302-301): Amasya becomes the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus; a new town begins to be founded on the opposite bank from the acropolis.

2nd-1st century BC: Because of the similarity of its construction technique to the Royal Rock Tombs, the canal is thought to have been built in the Hellenistic period; the official inventory gives the 1st century BC.

AD 117-138: The reign of Hadrian; some sources date the canal to this period.

3rd century AD: Repair of the vaults at the stream crossings; stated on the basis of the Greek inscription on the wall of the Yörgüç Paşa Mosque.

12th century: The canal loses its function, and a small chapel and settlement are built around it.

1911-1912: The canal and the legend are discussed in Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi.

1975 and 1988: The visible section of the canal is registered as a monument and immovable cultural asset.

1993: Nicholson and Nicholson publish the Greek inscription on the wall of the Yörgüç Paşa Mosque in Anatolian Studies.

1997-1998: Cleaning and rescue excavation by the Amasya Museum; survey and conservation project by Gazi University.

2006: The study by Urak and Aksulu is published in the Journal of the Faculty of Architecture of METU.

2013: The Ferhat and Şirin Ashiks Museum is built.

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Gediz Urak and Işık Aksulu, "Documentation for Preservation of the Ferhat Water Canal in Amasya," METU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, 23/2, 2006, pp. 93-112 (including quotations from Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, 1911-12, pp. 36-41, and from Ahmet Yüce's 1999 excavation report).
  • Şevket Dönmez, "Öntarih ve Klasik Dönemlerde Amasya: Güncel Arkeolojik Bulgular," TÜBA-AR, no. 16, 2013, pp. 21-56 (DergiPark). dergipark.org.tr
  • O. Nicholson and C. Nicholson, "The Aqueduct at Amasya in Pontus," Anatolian Studies, 43, 1993, pp. 143-146 (cited via the METU article).

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, "Ferhat Su Kanalı," Türkiye Culture Portal (Places to Visit), kulturportali.gov.tr. kulturportali.gov.tr
  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, "Ferhat Su Kanalı," Türkiye Culture Portal, Cultural Inventory (Monument), kulturportali.gov.tr. kulturportali.gov.tr
  • Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, "Ferhat ile Şirin Âşıklar Müzesi," Türkiye Culture Portal, kulturportali.gov.tr.

Other sources

  • Dursun Özden, "Amasya Ferhat Su Kanalı / Kehrizler," notes for the Anatolian Water Civilisation documentary, dursunozden.com.tr, 2013. dursunozden.com.tr
  • "Bu kanalı Ferhat'ın oyduğunu sanıyorsanız yanılıyorsunuz," Hürriyet Seyahat, hurriyet.com.tr. hurriyet.com.tr
  • "Efsaneleşmiş aşk hikâyeleri Ferhat ile Şirin Âşıklar Müzesi'nde," TRT Haber (AA), 29 September 2018.
  • Amasya Municipality City Guide, "Ferhat Su Kanalı," kentrehberi.amasya.bel.tr; Arkitera, "Ferhat ve Şirin Âşıklar Müzesi Bahçesine Mezarları da Yapıldı," 2013; "Ferhat ile Şirin," Wikipedia (Turkish).

Online sources