Turkey
Zerzevan Castle
A Roman frontier garrison's underground temple of Mithras, unopened until archaeologists reached it in 2017.
Descend through the rubble of a Roman garrison and the temperature drops, the air thickens, and the passage narrows into darkness. At the bottom, carved from living rock, waits a temple of Mithras that nobody opened again until 2017. The soldiers who worshipped here kept their rites to initiates, as the cult of Mithras demanded.
Zerzevan Castle was an Eastern Roman frontier garrison facing the Sassanid Empire, active from the 3rd to the 7th century AD, with barracks, an armoury, a church and water channels on its ridge above the Tigris plain. Its defining discovery came in 2017, when archaeologists opened an underground Mithraeum, the first sanctuary of the mystery god found on Rome's eastern frontier and among the best preserved anywhere. The cult admitted only initiates, and the buried chamber kept its ritual carvings and astronomical symbols for scholars still working to read them. Some 400,000 people now visit each year, and the site joined UNESCO's tentative list in 2020.
Solo
Descending alone toward a temple nobody entered for centuries is what solo travellers come this far east for. Go early, before the coaches reach the ridge.
Couple
Exploring the garrison together and stepping down into the Mithraeum is an intimate, slightly eerie adventure. Early morning and late afternoon are the quiet hours.
Friends
A hidden Mithras temple inside a Roman fortress on the edge of Mesopotamia fuels conversations for years. Combine it with Diyarbakır's walls and food.
- The Roman garrison keeps barrack rooms, a church and a command tower on its plateau above the Tigris plain.
- The Mithras temple beneath the fortress lay undiscovered until archaeologists opened it in 2017.
- It is the first Mithras sanctuary found on Rome's eastern frontier, and among the best preserved anywhere.
- The site sits 40 kilometres from Diyarbakır and now draws around 400,000 visitors a year, with tour coaches arriving through the day.
Diyarbakır ciÄer kebabı, lamb liver and tail fat skewered and spiced once the fire has taken.
Burma kadayıf, shredded pastry rolled with walnut, fried in butter and molasses, then syruped.
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