Kadirli · TR

Karatepe Aslantas National Park

Perched on a wooded hill above the Aslantaş dam lake in Osmaniye province, Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park packs a double appeal: a forested recreation area full of picnic spots and walking paths, and the setting of Turkey's first open-air museum, an Iron Age fortress whose carved gates once helped unlock a long-dead script. The hilltop citadel, known in antiquity as Azatiwataya, was built around the 8th century BC as a frontier stronghold by a local ruler who called himself Azatiwadas, king of the Adana plain. When its monumental gates were excavated in the 1940s, archaeologists found them covered with lions, sphinxes and a remarkable bilingual inscription—the key that finally let scholars read Anatolian hieroglyphic Luwian. Today that scholarly fame sits inside a green national park, so a single visit can pair ancient history with a day in the hills.