Rock-cut Pontic royal tombs above Ottoman houses on a river gorge
Amasya is one of Turkey's most dramatically sited cities — a narrow gorge cut by the Yeşilırmak River, with Ottoman timber mansions reflected in the water below and rock-cut tombs of the Pontic kings carved high into the cliff face above. The city was the training ground for Ottoman princes (each heir to the throne was sent here as governor before ascending) and is loaded with medrese, külliye, and hammams from the 14th–16th centuries. The cliff tombs above the town are the defining image: five Pontic royal burial chambers carved from the living rock between 333–26 BCE.
Amasya was the capital of the Kingdom of Pontus, the Hellenistic successor state that controlled much of the Black Sea coast after Alexander the Great. The geographer Strabo was born here around 64 BCE. After Pontus was absorbed by Rome, then Byzantine, then Danishmendid, Mongol, and Ottoman rule, its role as the city where Ottoman crown princes trained for governance made it unusually well-endowed with educational and religious institutions — more vakıf buildings (imperial charity endowments) per capita than almost any other Anatolian city.