“Water Palace” Population: 4,400
Old name: Sebastopolis, Heracleopolis (?), Çiftlik
Market day: Tuesday
Archaeological enthusiasts visiting Tokat might like to make a detour into the countryside to visit the scant remains of Sebastopolis, once, apparently, a large town in a strategic location on the road to the Black Sea but now mainly buried beneath modern Sulusaray
There’s little firm information to go on but Sebastopolis appears to have been founded in the first century BC and to have been a part of the province of Cappadocia. Archaeologists have dug up the remains of a large hamam complete with stokeholuse, pipes and bits of a hypocaust. They’ve also found the remains of a large Byzantine basilican church. Both can be found near the bank in the town centre.
Some distance away from them and not signed from the centre there is a small “museum” containing a large in-situ Roman mosaic, most of it covered with geometric designs although there is a glittering face visible in the middle. Scattered in the garden are a collection of Greek tombstones and other finds from the area. Some of the tombstones show what look like seven-branched candlesticks, suggesting a local Jewish population.
While here you might want to take a quick turn around the older part of the village which is full of lovely old wooden farmhouses that probably won’t survive for much longer.
In the gardens chickens, geese, ducks, puppies and bullocks while away the sunny days while the women sit on the ground shelling beans, preparing necklaces of peppers and aubergines to dry in their windows and generally carrying on a traditional rural life at odds with the high street and its hyper-modern bank.
Three km from the centre, Sulusaray also has a kaplıca (hot spring) that was in use from Roman times until the 1980s. There is now a modern hotel and resort on the site.
Sebastopolis Saray Termal Hotel. At Ilıcak, south-west of Sulusaray. Tel: 0505-872 4759
Transport info
Minibuses from Tokat‘s town centre Ilçe Otogarı cover the 68km run south in an hour. They leave roughly every hour from 9am with the last bus back from Sulusaray at 5pm. Check times carefully, especially in winter. 
