Divriği

Divriği lies on a gentle slope above the south bank of the Çaltısuyu, a tributary of the Karasu that ultimately reaches the Euphrates. Hills and mountain country surround the town, and large iron deposits lie nearby. Its dry-summer continental climate brings hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters, while the landscape retains woods on suitable slopes. A medieval castle, chiefly with thirteenth-century remains, occupies a steep hill above the settlement and once controlled the routes passing through this part of Sivas province. In the ninth century the town was known as Abrik and belonged to the Paulicians, an Armenian religious community supported by Arabs and the emir of Malatya. Around 850 their leader Karbeas fortified it, using it as a refuge and the capital of a small Paulician state. The Byzantines later called it Tephrike and recovered the stronghold under Basil I, temporarily renaming it Leontokome. After Manzikert, Divriği passed to the Sultanate of Rûm. Mengüjek rulers then built the Great Mosque and hospital in the thirteenth century.