What is…
Tarsus

also known as: Tarsa (its earlier Hittite name)

This was the capital city of ancient Cilicia located on a fertile coastal plain just inland from the Mediterranean. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and was known for its wealth and for its schools of learning, in which it rivalled and even excelled Athens and Alexandria, and hence was spoken of as “no insignificant city” (Acts 21:39). The city was especially famous for its for linen, commerce, and its schools.

Cydnus River

It stood on the banks of the ancient navigable Cydnus River (now called the Berdan River), about 12 miles (16–20 km) north of the sea. Named for the river-god Cydnus, the river flows to the Mediterranean. There was a lagoon harbor that made it a major trade and cultural center for millennia. Today the river no longer passes directly through the city, as its course was changed in the 6th century. In the 20th and 21st century, 4 dams were created to produce electricity and control floods.

Founder

The founder of Tarsus is said to be King Sardanapalus, the last king of Assyria. Alexander the Great’s biographers say he was shown his tomb at Anchialus in Cilicia, with a relief carving of the king clapping his hands and a cuneiform inscription that the locals translated for him as “Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, built Anchialus and Tarsus in a single day; stranger, eat, drink and make love, as other human things are not worth this.”1

Location

Its location is at modern Tarsus in the Mersin Province of southern Turkey. Tarsus sat near its Cilicia’s western end, close to the important Cilician Gates mountain pass through the Taurus range.

History

• Early periods: Settlement from the Neolithic (Gözlükule mound). It appears as Tarsa under the Hittites, later under Assyrians and as a Persian satrapy with local Cilician kings (the Syennesis dynasty).
• Hellenistic (Greek) age: Alexander the Great took the city in 333 BC and fell ill after swimming in the cold Cydnus. The Seleucids were a Macedonian-Greek royal dynasty that ruled the largest of Alexander the Great’s successor kingdoms. Under the Seleucids a Jewish community was settled in Tarsus (Paul’s family belonged to it). The city was briefly called Antioch-on-the-Cydnus.
• Roman period: Pompey made it capital of the province of Cilicia (67/64 BC). It received privileges from Mark Antony. In 41 BC Cleopatra sailed up the Cydnus River in a spectacular barge to meet Antony—the beginning of their famous alliance. Cicero governed Cilicia from Tarsus.

Apostle Paul

Tarsus is the birthplace of the Apostle Paul (Acts 21:39). Jesus identified him to Ananias of Damascus as “a man from Tarsus” (Acts 9:10, 11).

After Paul’s conversion and early preaching in Jerusalem, the disciples sent him back to Tarsus for safety (Acts 9:30). Barnabas later went to Tarsus to find him and brought him to Antioch, launching Paul’s public ministry (Acts 11:25, 26).

When arrested in Jerusalem, Paul told the Roman commander he was “a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city” (Acts 21:39) and later told the crowd he was “born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city [Jerusalem] at the feet of Gamaliel” (Acts 22:3).

Paul was a Roman citizen by birth, a status that later protected him from flogging and allowed him to appeal to Caesar. Tarsus in his day was a wealthy, cosmopolitan university city—famous for Stoic philosophy and rhetoric, often compared with Athens and Alexandria. That Hellenistic-Jewish environment shaped a well educated man who could move between synagogue, Greek thought, and Roman law. He also spent years back in Cilicia after his conversion, almost certainly preaching there.

Archaeology

Little of the ancient city is visible today because the modern town sits on top of it. Surviving or excavated remains include a stretch of Roman road, parts of the gate, and sites linked to Paul.

• Ancient Roman Road (Antik Yol), Cumhuriyet Square — A well-preserved stretch of basalt-paved street about 21-23 feet (6.5–7 meters) wide, with side gutters, an underground drainage/sewer system, and traces of flanking porticoes or stylobates. Dating is late Hellenistic to early Roman (possibly 2nd century BC under Antiochus IV or 1st century AD). This is the best surviving piece of the street grid Paul would have known. About 213 feet (65 meters) has been uncovered and is now an open-air site.
• Paul’s Well (Aziz Paulos Kuyusu) — This is a Roman-period well in a courtyard traditionally identified as the location of Paul’s family house. Excavations around it reached 1st-century Roman occupation layers several meters below the modern ground level. The well itself is about 59 feet (18 meters) deep and visitors can still draw water. It is the site most closely associated by tradition with Paul’s childhood.
  Site of Paul’s well, Tarsus, Turkey—satellite view
• Cleopatra’s Gate (aka the Sea Gate or Paul’s Gate) — This is the only surviving city gate. The visible masonry is a later Roman or Byzantine rebuild (2nd–4th century AD or later), but it stands on the site of the western/harbor gate that existed when Cleopatra sailed up the Cydnus River to meet Mark Antony in 41 BC and during Paul’s lifetime.
• Gözlükule (Gözlü Kule) Mound — This is the main ancient tell on the southeast edge of the city. Hetty Goldman’s excavations (1935–1939) and later work by Boğaziçi University revealed a long sequence from Neolithic through Hellenistic and Roman layers. Hellenistic and Roman houses, workshops, and large numbers of terracotta figurines (deities, people, animals) came from here. Nearby are the foundations of a 1st-century AD hippodrome (now located under the Tarsus American College campus) and remnants of a Roman theater. Little standing architecture from Paul’s exact generation survives, but the mound documents continuous occupation through biblical times.
• Donuktaş — This is the remains of a large Roman temple (2nd century AD), one of the biggest temple platforms in the region. It is slightly later than Paul but part of the same imperial Roman city he was familiar with.
• Roman baths sections (an arched brick wall near the Eski Cami/Kilise Cami is thought to belong to one).
• Roman bridge over a former channel of the Cydnus River (date uncertain)
• Roman-period graves and architectural fragments displayed in the Tarsus Archaeology Museum and around Paul’s Well
• Tarsus Archaeology Museum (opened in its current form in 2020) displays finds from the excavations: Hellenistic and Roman pottery, coins, terracottas from Gözlükule, architectural pieces, and objects from the Paul’s Well and the Donuktaş digs.
• Everything else from Paul’s era remains inaccessible—buried under the modern city buildings, streets and infrastructure.

1. Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (1973), 1986:163
   Kostas Vlassopoulos, Greeks and Barbarians. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, (2013), p. 155.