Karadeniz Ereğli: Ancient Herakleia on the Black Sea

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1. What is Karadeniz Ereğli?
2. How do you get to Karadeniz Ereğli?
3. When is the best time to visit Karadeniz Ereğli?
4. What is the history of Karadeniz Ereğli?
5. What is Karadeniz Ereğli famous for?
6. What can you see in Karadeniz Ereğli?
7. Frequently asked questions about Karadeniz Ereğli
8. What do the official records say about Karadeniz Ereğli?

What is Karadeniz Ereğli?

Karadeniz Ereğli (“Black Sea Ereğli”, to tell it apart from Ereğli in Konya) is a port town in the west of Zonguldak province. It stands on the site of Herakleia Pontike, one of the most important Greek cities on the southern Black Sea coast, and its large natural harbour is one of the few good anchorages on this stretch of coast (Wikipedia).

Today it is an industrial town as much as a historic one, home to the Erdemir steelworks. But the old centre keeps a lot to see in a day: the Cehennemağzı Caves where Herakles was said to enter the underworld, an archaeology museum in an Ottoman mansion, castle ruins and a replica of a War of Independence ship.

How do you get to Karadeniz Ereğli?

Ereğli has no airport or railway station, so you arrive by bus or car. It is about 50 km west of Zonguldak along the coast road, with buses through the day. Intercity coaches also run from Istanbul, Ankara and Düzce.

The nearest airports are Zonguldak (ONQ), east of Zonguldak city, with flights from Istanbul, and Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen.

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When is the best time to visit Karadeniz Ereğli?

May to September. June is strawberry time; the 2002 inventory placed Ereğli’s Ottoman strawberry festival in the first two weeks of the month. July and August are the beach months. The museums and caves can be visited all year, but the coast is wet and windy in winter.

What is the history of Karadeniz Ereğli?

The Ereğli municipality gives about 550 BC as the founding date of Herakleia Pontike, by Dorian settlers from Megara and Boeotia; it records an older local people, the Mariandynoi, living here from around 1200 BC (Kdz. Ereğli Municipality). The 2002 inventory credits the founding to the Mariandynians themselves. The Greeks reduced them to serfs who worked the land but could not be sold abroad (Wikipedia).

Around 400 BC Xenophon’s Ten Thousand, the Greek mercenaries marching home from Persia, stopped at Herakleia, quarrelled and split up. From 364 BC the city was ruled by tyrants, beginning with Klearchos; one of his successors, Queen Amastris, later founded the city that bears her name, Amasra. In the Mithridatic Wars the Roman commander Cotta besieged Herakleia for two years (72–70 BC), then sacked and burned it; it was rebuilt under Augustus.

The Byzantines held the city for over a thousand years. David Komnenos of Trebizond took it in 1204, the Nicaean emperor Theodore Laskaris recaptured it in 1214, and from 1261 it became a Genoese trading colony. The municipality dates the first Ottoman conquest to 1337, by Süleyman Paşa, son of Orhan Gazi, although the Genoese regained control for periods afterwards and full Ottoman rule came only in the 15th century.

In 1829 Uzun Mehmet, from the village of Kestaneci, found coal near Ereğli, and the news was sent to the palace. It was the beginning of the Zonguldak coal basin. On 18 June 1920 Ereğli’s people seized the French commanders and soldiers stationed in the town, who were made to sign an agreement with the nationalist government in Ankara; the municipality calls it the first international agreement of the War of Independence. In January 1921 the steamer Alemdar, taken out of Istanbul by the nationalists, reached Ereğli, was captured by a French destroyer and was retaken by her crew in a fight off Baba Burnu (Kdz. Ereğli Municipality).

What is Karadeniz Ereğli famous for?

• Herakles. The city was named after him, and the Cehennemağzı Caves are the traditional site of his descent to Hades.
• Coal and steel. Coal was first found here in 1829; the Erdemir steelworks now lines the bay.
• Osmanlı strawberries. A small, fragrant strawberry grown around the town, with its own festival in June according to the 2002 inventory.
• The 18 June 1920 uprising and the story of the Alemdar.

What can you see in Karadeniz Ereğli?

Cehennemağzı Caves. The cave church with its mosaic floor and apse, and the caves linked to Herakles, in the İnönü district.

Ereğli Museum (Halil Paşa Mansion). The museum occupies a three-storey Ottoman mansion built in the late 19th century for Halil Paşa Karamahmutoğlu, governor of the sanjak under Abdülhamid II, on foundations thought to be those of an older church; reused ancient blocks are visible in its outer walls. It opened as a museum on 1 August 1998. Inside are Greek, Roman and Byzantine marble grave stelae, figured column capitals, glass, jewellery, coins from the Lydians to the Ottomans, local textiles and a furnished Ottoman room. In the garden stand the monumental tomb of Krispos, a pantomime artist, the sarcophagus of Herakleides and a Thracian rider stele (Kdz. Ereğli Municipality).

Gazi Alemdar museum ship. A replica of the Alemdar, built in four parts in four shipyards and assembled in the 18 June Park, opened on 8 August 2008. A visitor centre next to it opened in 2011.

Ereğli Castle and the walls. The ruins of the citadel on the height above the town date in their surviving form largely from the Genoese period. Stretches of the city walls, with Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman work, survive around the old town.

Çeştepe. A hill with an ancient lighthouse tower and a tumulus, listed by the municipality among the town’s historic sites, along with the Heraclius Palace, the Göztepe necropolis, a Byzantine church and the Balı aqueduct.

Other museums. The municipality’s City Museum and a Toy Museum.

Frequently asked questions about Karadeniz Ereğli

What do the official records say about Karadeniz Ereğli?

The Ereğli Museum serves in the building known as the Halil Paşa Mansion. The Halil Paşa Mansion was built at the end of the 19th century, in the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II, by Halil Paşa Karamahmutoğlu, who was then governor of the sanjak.

On the ground floor of the museum are exhibited archaeological works collected from Ereğli and its surroundings, dating from the Greek, Roman and Byzantine periods: marble funerary pieces, figured marble column capitals, glass vessels, jewellery, various metal objects, oil lamps and figurines. (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Zonguldak Provincial Tourism Inventory, 2002)

Main photo: Rehber, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.