
Mount Amanus is a mountain in the Nur Mountains in the Hatay region of southern Turkey. In the Middle Ages, it was known as the "Black Mountain", and it was home to numerous Armenian, Melkite, Syriac, Georgian Orthodox, and Catholic monasteries and hermits. The Turks thus nicknamed the mountain the "Mount of Infidels", and, in 1028, Emperor Romanus III of Byzantium attempted to recruit the local Christians for his campaign against Aleppo. In 1066, the Turks devastated the local monasteries, and, in 1098, the monks gave provisions to the Crusaders besieging Antioch during the First Crusade. By 1225, the Templar Order had established a castle on Mount Amanus.