Sarıkale

The cliffs of Sarıkale (=Yellow Fortress), rising some 60 m up out of the valley, visually dominate the city landscape. This rocky spur was built over with an extensive architectural complex in Hittite times. Remains of masonry, beddings cut into the rock to receive the great stone blocks and a cistern (with remains of a corbeled vault) are preserved. It could be approached only from the back (the SE side), where ruins of a gate and a fortification wall with bastions have survived. There can be no doubt that the structure on this impressive cliff nearly in the center of the Upper City had a very special function. The expression "rock-crest houses" recurs several times in Hittite texts connected with cults, most especially with the cult of the dead. These passages may well refer to structures like those on Sarıkale, Yenicekale and Nişantaş, constructions which indeed stood on separate rock outcroppings.
The Hittite remains on Sarıkale have been greatly diminished both by erosion and by later activity on the cliffs; in Byzantine times the complex was reused and more fortifications built. It may have been the palace of the dignitary who ruled over the sizable Byzantine settlement on the saddle to the southeast of Sarıkale.