The Urartian fortress located north of Kale village, which lies about 5 km east of the Mazgirt district center, takes its name from the village, and the village in turn takes its name from the fortress (Kaleköy means Fortress Village). It is not a settlement large enough to serve as a provincial center, yet the inhabited area around the rocky citadel is too extensive for it to have been merely an outpost or frontier fortress. With these features, Kaleköy is thought to have been a tribal center.
The citadel stands atop a rock mass measuring approximately 200 meters in length along an east–west axis. On the south-facing side of the rock lies a two-chambered rock-cut tomb, at the entrance of which a Urartian inscription (A 12-6) is located. The workmanship of the tomb chambers resembles that of the royal tombs at Van Kale, though it is on a much smaller scale. To the right of the entrance, a shaft accessed through a rock-cut doorway has been identified. The function of this shaft remains debated. It may have served the same purpose as the shafts found within rock tombs at Palu and Kayalıdere. However, unlike those examples, this shaft is located outside the tomb itself, making it a unique case.
Approximately ten meters to the right of this tomb is another rock-cut chamber (a single-chambered tomb or rock-cut room) that also contains a shaft. Researchers disagree about the function of this single-chambered structure. Unlike other shafted tombs, the shaft here is located at the very center of the chamber, with its opening occupying a large portion of the floor space.
At the top of the rock, a platform created by leveling the bedrock and two niches in front of it suggest that the area functioned as a ceremonial cult site.
Although references to Kaleköy in scholarly literature date back to the mid-19th century, these have generally focused on the two-chambered tomb and its inscription. No excavations have yet been carried out at Kaleköy.
References:
Çevik, N. 2000. Urartu Kaya Mezarları ve Ölü Gömme Gelenekleri, Türk Tarih Kurumu, Ankara.
Danışmaz, H. 2018. Arkeolojik Veriler Çerçevesinde Urartu Krallığı’nın Eyalet Sistemi, Yayınlanmamış Doktora Tezi, İstanbul Üniversitesi, İstanbul, 2018.
Erdoğan, S. 2007. Tunceli-Mazgirt / Kaleköy Kalesi, Yayınlanmamış Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi, 2007.
Erdoğan, S. 2023. “New Findings on Urartian Rock-Cut Tomb in Mazgirt/Kaleköy Fortress,” in Systemizing the Past, eds. Y. Grekyan & A. Bobokhyan, Archaeopress, 116-126.
Schäfer, H. P. 1977. “Die Inschrift Rusa II. Argištehinis in Mazgirt-Kaleköy (UKN 279 = HChl 127),” Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici 18, 249–268.
Images:
N. Çevik, 2000
H. Danışmaz, 2018
S. Erdoğan, 2023
Ertuğrul Anıl, 2024
Bora Bilgin, 2024
Tayfun Bilgin, 2024