The walls of Ankara Castle which once enclosed the fortified city proper are now lost in the centre of the sprawling metropolis. Although they encircle the city's highest hill they are not visible from every point but wait to be discovered by the discerning eye.

The inner walls have 42 towers. Only a few scattered traces remain of the outer walls with their 20 towers.

As the city spread in different directions after Ankara became capital of Turkish Republic

The citadel changed hands time after time throughout its history, and was successively razed and repaired again. When the ancient land of Galatia was incorporated into the Roman Empire in 25 BC Ankara became a Roman stronghold of strategic importance. It continued to be a prominent military garrison under the Byzantines of the Eastern Roman Empire. Lying on the ancient King's Road, Ankara was also of key commercial importance. It was in the path of the Persians, Arab and Sassanid invasions, and of the many tribes which migrated into Anatolia. When Alexander the Great took Gordion to the west he detoured through Ankara before proceeding on his march of conquest. During Byzantine times the Arab leader Haroun Reshid and in late Ottoman times the rebel viceroy of Egypt Mehmet Ali Pasa made unsuccessful efforts to capture the city and its castle. When the Turkish Sultan Beyazit I lost the Battle of Ankara in 1402, he was imprisoned in Ankara Castle by Timur for several weeks.

The area within the citadel has been transformed into a conservation area

There are conflicting views about when the castle walls were originally built and to which era the surviving walls belong, but in design at least the inner walls are typical of Byzantine fortifications. There has been a settlement here since Hittite times, and probably a fortress here since the town was first founded. Archaeologists have discovered many remains dating from the pre-Roman period, particularly in and around the castle, although the walls themselves date back no earlier than the Roman period.

Under the Romans Ankara expanded beyond the inner walls downhill towards the plain, in the form of an open city similar to the ancient Greek city states, but subsequently the outer walls were constructed as protection against the Persians and Arabs. Only the names of the city gates, named after the major cities to which each road out of the city led remind us of the existence of these walls. Nothing remains but the stone inscriptions of the Temple of Zeus, the large theatre where the Dionysian revels were held, the gymnasium, hippodrome, agora and other buildings inside the castle, which have all disappeared with the exception of the Temple of Augustus. The Church of St Clement, which is even older than Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, is completely in ruins.

Those parts of the inner walls left standing by invaders and three great fires at the turn of this century conceal their history in their stones. The area within the castle walls became densely packed with houses during Ottoman times, particularly from the 16th century onwards, and today this area of old wooden houses and narrow streets is a conservation area. After Ankara was proclaimed the Turkish capital in 1923 the heart of the city moved away, leaving the old city in and around the castle a neglected backwater. Now however the area it is becoming a centre of cultural and social life once more, as the old houses are restored and the streets cleaned up and repaired. The historic interest of this area, heightened still further by the presence of the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, attract tourists and local people alike.

The hold houses in Ankara Citadel are being restored and turned into restaurants and hotels

When you visit Ankara next make sure that you climb the south walls, which on a clear day offer the finest view over the city. And if you are there on a cloudless night the way the stars in the high dome of the sky seem to intermingle on the horizon with the lights of the city is a sight not to be missed. Distant music and other sounds of modern city life waft up to the ancient walls whose stones have seen so many changes over two millenia.