Hoşap

Hoşap lies beside the stream of the same name south of Lake Van, beneath a castle perched on a steep mass of rock. Its inner and outer walls guard the road through the mountains towards Hakkari. The site was fortified under many earlier rulers, but the surviving castle owes much to the Kurdish Mahmudi lords, who held the district under Ottoman authority. An inscription over the inner gate names Sarı Süleyman Bey as its builder in the 1640s.