Mount Cassius and The Castle of Cursat
This site is 433 km south of Antakya, near Yayladagi.
In the Hittite period it was regarded as a holy place and it retained this character in the ages that followed. “The sailors came there to pray to Zeus before setting out to sea. In 300 B.C. Seleucos Nicator came there to sacrifice to the gods. The Ancients believed that the east slope was the side of light and the west slope that of darkness.”
The Castle of Cursat
This castle stands some 15 km south of Antioch, not far from the Antakya Yayla Dagi road. Cursat (in Arab, Qusayir) was founded by the Crusaders and its purpose was to protect Antioch from the south and to be a place of refuge in case of need.
The castle was used intermittently as the residence of the patriarch of Antioch. Cursat put up a drawn-out resistance to the Mameluk Sultan Baybars and did not fall until 175, seven years after the capture of Antioch. It was the headquarters of a small administrative and military subdivision dependent on Aleppo. Cursat stands on a very sheer rock, but is connected with the neighbouring mountains in the south west by a ridge through which the Crusaders dug a moat. The irregular outer wall is in ruins except for the eastern part. The castle is entered by a gate at the north west side. Inside, on the right, is a building that used to house the guards and, on the left, a large vaulted underground room lit by large windows. To the south west stood two two storeyed towers built in the 13th century and still well preserved.
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