Antakya

Antioch was founded around 300 BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander's generals, on the Orontes below Mount Silpius, and became the capital of the Seleucid empire. Under Rome it grew into one of the largest cities of the ancient world, rivalled only by Rome and Alexandria, with colonnaded streets lit at night, an imperial palace on an island in the river, and the pleasure suburb of Daphne with its springs and sanctuary. Its wealthy houses were floored with the mosaics that fill the city's museum today.

Antioch was central to early Christianity. The Book of Acts records that it was here that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians; Peter and Paul both worked in the city, and it became one of the great patriarchal sees of the early church. Catastrophe came repeatedly: earthquakes in the 6th century, Persian sack, then Arab conquest in 637, Byzantine recapture in 969, and in 1098 the Crusaders, who made it the capital of the Principality of Antioch until the Mamluk sultan Baybars took and destroyed it in 1268.

What survived was a provincial town, absorbed by the Ottomans in the 16th century. After the First World War the district was attached to French-mandate Syria, became the short-lived State of Hatay in 1938 and joined Turkey in 1939. The 20th century brought new avenues on the west bank and steady growth, and the Syrian war after 2011 brought a very large refugee population. On 6 February 2023 two earthquakes centred in Kahramanmaraş province struck before dawn; among the cities of the region Antakya was the worst affected, losing much of its old quarter and a great part of its population.

Antakya's identity rests on mixture. Sunni Turks, Arabic-speaking Alawites, Orthodox and Catholic Christians of the Antiochian tradition and, until recently, a small Jewish congregation have lived in the same streets for centuries, and the city has long advertised the fact — church, mosque and synagogue stood within minutes of one another in the old quarter. Arabic is spoken alongside Turkish in the markets and villages, and many families use both at home.

The Alawite communities of Hatay have their own calendar of commemorations, including Ashura, and their own shrines in the hills; Christian villages such as Vakıflı, on Musa Dağı, keep their feast days and their orange harvest. Music and food carry Levantine accents that are unusual in Turkey, and the city's cooking carries a reputation well beyond the province.

Craft traditions run to laurel soap, boiled from the oil of the bay trees that grow on the slopes, silk weaving and copper. Since 2023 much of the city's cultural energy has gone into salvage and memory: cataloguing what was lost, restoring what can be restored, and arguing over how the old city should be rebuilt. Residents speak of the earthquake as a dividing line, and visitors are generally met with the same insistent hospitality as before.

Hatay province had about 1.7 million people before February 2023, and Antakya, its capital, was a city of a few hundred thousand. The earthquakes killed tens of thousands across the region and drove many survivors to other provinces; the population fell sharply and has only partly returned. Much of daily life is conducted from container settlements and new blocks on the plain while the centre is rebuilt.

The provincial economy rests on farming and industry rather than tourism. The Amik plain grows cotton, wheat, vegetables and citrus, the hills produce olives, olive oil and bay laurel, and İskenderun on the gulf has steelworks and one of Turkey's larger ports. Construction has dominated employment since 2023, and public agencies, aid organisations and the university are significant employers in the city itself.

The day starts early, closes for the hottest hours in summer and picks up again in the evening, when families walk by the river or take the road up to Harbiye for tea. Water, dust, traffic through building sites, and the slow business of compensation and rehousing are the routine preoccupations. The city also holds a substantial Syrian population that arrived after 2011, and questions of housing and work are discussed constantly.

Antakya's cooking is the most Levantine in Turkey, and the city takes it seriously. Humus is eaten warm, sometimes with butter or spiced meat on top; muhammara-style pastes of walnut, red pepper and pomegranate molasses appear among the meze, along with zahter salad made from wild thyme, and sürk, a spiced cheese rolled into cones. Oruk are shells of fine bulgur stuffed with minced meat and walnuts, boiled or fried — the local form of the Levantine kibbeh.

The kebabs are often baked rather than skewered: tepsi kebabı spread in a wide tray and cooked in a bakery oven, kağıt kebabı wrapped in paper with peppers and tomato, and the oven-cooked dishes that neighbourhood bakeries will prepare from ingredients brought in by customers. Biberli ekmek, a flatbread spread with red pepper paste, and dishes built on aubergine, chickpeas and yoghurt fill out the everyday table, and pomegranate molasses, dried mint, cumin and red pepper flakes define the seasoning.

Sweets end everything. Künefe is the city's emblem: shredded kadayıf pastry packed around soft unsalted cheese, baked in a shallow copper dish over a flame, drenched in syrup and served scalding with crushed pistachio. Aşure, the pudding of grains, pulses, dried fruit and nuts, is cooked and shared in autumn, and the bakeries sell semolina helva and syrup-soaked pastries year-round. Tea is constant; Arabic-style coffee with cardamom is common in Alawite and Christian households.