Göksun

Göksun lies in a high basin on the roads between central Anatolia and northern Syria. The Romans and Byzantines knew it as Cocussus, a town in the province of Armenia Secunda; Armenian sources preserve forms of the name such as Kokson. Its remote setting made it a place of exile for the churchman John Chrysostom, who died on the journey from here in 407.

Armenian bishops of Cocussus are recorded in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. During the later struggles for Cilicia, Türkmen raids placed the town under pressure. Around 1375 its inhabitants are said to have abandoned it and sought refuge in Hadjin and Zeitun to the south. The memory of Cocussus nevertheless survived in the local name, linking the mountain basin to the older communities that had occupied it.