Lampron

Lampron (Armenian: Լամբրոն; French: Les Embruns; Turkish: Namrun Kalesi) is a castle near the town of Çamlıyayla in Mersin Province, Turkey. While part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia in the Middle Ages, the castle was known as Lampron and was the ancestral home of the Armenian Hethumid princes. Situated in the Taurus Mountains, the fortress guarded passes to Tarsus and the Cilician Gates.

Architecture

Like many castles in the mountainous landscape of the former Kingdom of Armenia, Lampron is a spur castle. It covers an area approximately 330 by 150 meters on the top of a hill. There is a drop of more than 50 meters from the side of the hill to the river valley below.

The castle is divided in a lower and an upper ward. The upper ward is accessible only via rock-cut stairs, and through a narrow turning entrance passage. Many of the buildings in the inner ward have collapsed into rubble, but a barrel-vaulted hall is still standing. Some of the buildings were heated by means of a hypocaust.

File:LampronCastle.jpg

19th-century view of castle Lampron by Victor Langlois

In Popular Culture

The castle, along with its neighbouring Sinap Castle has been featured in the 2013 film Fear Through Eternity.

References

• Unknown crusader castles by Kristian Molin, Hambledon Continuum, 2001

• Lampron: Castle of Armenian Cilicia. By F. C. R. Robinson and P. C. Hughes. Anatolian Studies, Vol. 19, (1969), pp. 183–207. Published by: British Institute at AnkaraStable