Samsat

Samsat stood on a mound beside the Euphrates, commanding a crossing of the great river. In antiquity it was Samosata, capital of the kingdom of Commagene and the birthplace of the satirist Lucian. The settlement's walls rose above a site occupied for thousands of years, and the river connected it with the lands of northern Syria and Mesopotamia.

Known in medieval Arabic as Sumaysat, the fortress passed through the hands of rival powers on the Anatolian frontier. The Seljuk sultan Rukn al-Din Süleyman II captured it in 1203, building on earlier Byzantine defences. In 1516 Sultan Selim I brought Samsat under Ottoman rule during the campaign against the Mamluks. The fortified town remained a landmark on the Euphrates, its succession of names reflecting the many peoples and rulers who had known the crossing.