Hasankeyf

The lost city in Kurdistan ?

While in Turkey tne ancient sites of Zeugma and Apamea are going to disappear under the flows of the Birecik dam, the discuss about the opportunity of the GAP (South-Eastern Anatolian Project) that will flood many unvaluable archeological remnants, reachs an international level.

Behind the economical motives exposing by Turkey, hides the unconfessed "Water War" opposing many countries in the Near and Middle East. And in that war, the South-Eastern Anatolian land, where are the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrat, is a trump card. Since decades, Turkey, Syria and Irak make a political and economical blackmail which the main factors are the water of Kurdistan and the independantist claimings of Kurds.

For that reason this project of dam is crucial for Turkey and will make possible to control the sharing of water in the region.

So, in this project estimated to many milliards of dollars, the historical value of the sites that will be submerged, their importance in the heritage of humanity, the migration of population with all the human damages that ‘ll be provoke, all of that dos not weight a lot.

Among these condemned sites is the city of Hasankeyf.

Hasankeyf is one of the most ancient occupied places in the region, with historical remnants of major importance, which the oldest are dated from 5000 years. But if the Ilisu dam is built, 57 towns will be flooded and more than 16.000 people will be go away from their ancestors’land.

Hasankeyf is the most eminent troglodytes’ village of Mesopotamia, because of its numerous and very ancient caves. It is too an old roman fortress, erected for facing the ennemy borders of Persian empire. And it is at the end a medieval capital where were set two of the most famous dynasties in the region: the Kurdish Ayyubids and the Turkish Ortokids.

So we could guess how much the interest of Hasankeyf has many aspects, and it is shown by like the numerous etymologies that which popular fantasy gives to its name : Hasankeyf (Hasan’s delight) or Hösn Keyf (happiness) or Hosn Keïf (Forgetting castle) in Turkish, Hisn Kayfa in Arabic, and before that Kiphas at roman times that would come itself from the Syriac word Kayfa (cliff)...

Along the Tigris bank, starting from Diyarbakir, the historical capital of Kurdistan, we reach that town, after a travel through the valley soonly condemned by waters. On the road, we see few houses, some cattles and peasants much police cordon. Nowadays, the Turkish Kurdistan is a quite deserted land : The war of fifteen years between the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and the Turkish government had destroyed near to four thousands villages and expelled millions of Kurds. In the past, the Kurdistan in Turkey had wooded mountains with much animals. But today, the mountains are burnt and stones shows on the surface. Before, there were rich pastures, which the transhumance was the soul of these villages. Today no trees, no pasture in that land although fertile. The farmers and the shepherds of this land have fled, or are imprisonned and their children sell shoelaces and cigarettes in the streets of Istanbul.

But in that destroyed land, along the Tigris, meadows and flourished trees make a coloured and joyful ribbon that brightens the pathetical austerity of that landscape: orchards and some cultivated fields show that all the peasants’life is not dead, that this land could quickly revive.

Near to Hasankeyf, we see in first the great ruined citadel, set on a cliff, above the city and the valley. This fortress gave its name to the city. As a check-point between most valleys, the Citadel made possible to control communication between Anatolia, High-Mesopotamia and Northern-Syria. Its military importance endured at the Byzantine period. After the Arabian conquest, the city passed under the rule of the Caliphs in Bagdad, before to be contested between some independents emirates.

Two mausoleums were erected out of the town, on the left bank of the Tigris and are remnants of that prestigious past. The first one shelters the Zaynal Beg ‘s grave. He was a son of the Turkish prince Uzun Hasan, from the dynasty of Aq-qoyunlu (or White sheeps) whose the immense empire covered Eastern Anatolia, Mesopotamia, a part of Caucasus and a great part of Iran.

Uzun Hasan was a great prince and an accute politician since he married an Byzantine princess, making of his descendance the inheritors of the Christian Imperators. But he gave too his daughter to a leader of a shiite brotherhood, the Kizil Bash or "Red Heads" who took the Iranian throne in 1501-1502 and ruled the Persian empire during two centuries.

The tomb of Zaynal Beg, that son of Turkish nomads related with the royal families of Anatolia, Byzance and Persia, is a bricked and stoned monument, similar to the turbeh or mausoleums erected in Central Asia, Anatolia and Caucasus.

Far from three fields, there is an else mausoleum, smaller, squat, probably older, showing a more archaic type of these princes’ tombs.

For entering in Hasankeyf, we should before pass the Tigris. Nowadays, we pass the river by a modern and steeled bridge, built next to the old bridge of 1116, which only the basis and an arch remain, and three stoned pillars that spring out of water like three fingers showing the sky. The bridge was famous in its time and the Arabian geographer Yakut (1079-1129) described it like one of the most beautiful works he ever saw. The last mention of that bridge came from the Italian traveler Barbaro, who saw it still undestroyed in 1510.

The city of Hasankeyf is situated on the right bank of the Tigris, bottom of a ravine. At the time of its prosperity, its economical life was intense, and its suburbs were vast, with a lot of warehouses and markets. As remains of its past commercial and political greatness, many monuments stand still : The mosque al-Rizk, at the North-West of the town, built in 1409, which the minaret reaches 30 meters, ornamented with an elegant decor of bricks and stones, and serves too as a shelter to the numerous storks of the region ; and the mosque Sulayman (13th-14th century) with various domes and its richly ornamented vault …

Moreover, islam is not the only religion to let trace in Hasankeyf. Today like before, the Christian presence is important. Since the Vth century, Hasankeyf had a Syrian diocese and at the end of Middle Ages Christians were quite favoured by Tukish sultans. Recently arrived, the Turkish tribes spared the Christian populations, Greeks or Syriac, because of the hostility of Kurds and Arabians, who did not easily accept to lost their political and military domination.

But the most interesting monument and the origins of the city too, are the two mounts of Hasankeyf, in which constructions are undissociably melt with natural elements. These mountains are so filled of caves which someone could have five thousands years and dated from the Neolithic period.

Then, these troglodyte habitations would exist since the first time of humanity. They communicate each other by stairs and corridors carved by men. At the XIXth century, the English traveler Taylor excavated these caves and found Iranian, Byzantine and Arabian moneys, dated from the first centuries of our era. Nowadays, uch caves have windows and doors. Donkeys, dogs and sheeps circulate between houses. Samml restaurants set their terraces and on Sunday, families from the low town come for a picnic at the top of the mounts. At the foothills, sellers show carpets and bags made with weaved coats of goats and sheeps and tincted with vivid colours.

To reach the Citadel, we just have to get up the stone-carved stairs. Bottom of the mountain, kids come around us, attracted by our « European » aspect. But after that many Kurdish words have been pronounced, eyes widely open: since the creation of the Kemalist republic, Kurdish is a denied and banned language , and the Kurds are an imaginary people, considered like a mountained Turkish population, though they are among the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia and Anatolia. Immediately, questions burst out : "Do you speak Kurdish ? Where did you learn it ?" Then, that friendly escort comes with us, watches our bags and guides us in the most beautiful rooms of the Citadel.

What we can see from the Citadel of Hasankeyf, after having passed the first terraces where restaurants exhibits their kebabs, drinks and backgammion games, it is the Tower-Gate of the Citadel, attracting immediately the visitors.

The top of the tower had disappear. The two third parts still stand, which we admire the beautiful moulding measures. The main pattern of that decor is a cylindrical band endend by a forked tail, quite like the tongue of a snake. It reminds the interlaced dragons that ornamented mosques and tombs in all Kurdistan, but from which the artist would have kept just a part of that pattern, stylized it with just keeping the more abstract lines. Considering the fact that Kurds, opposing to the usual reluctances of islam to showing realistic living figures on religious monuments, did never hesitate to carve on stone human, animals and fantastic creatures, this would be an extraordinary rigorism. Some Arabic inscriptions, with a very geometric writing, ornament the wall too, and a calligraphic freese divides the tower at its middle part.

Having reach the first level of the Citadel, by stairs carved in the stone and running around the moutain, we stand front of the first palace. Here and there, under our feet, we find deep holes from where get out smoke : some chimneys are still active in the lower habitations and we take care to not fall down suddenly in an inhabitan’s home !

From the first palace, it just remains one room, facing the valley and the town. From that point of view, the landscape is wonderful : To our left, we see the two turbeh and the bridge ; on our right, the mosques which the minarets rise above the city. Meandering between the mountains, the waters of the Tigris has marvellous colours. At the Xith century, Ibn Hawqual, a famous Muslim geographer, issued from High-Mesopotamia, described the land that we watch presently :

Raising our eyes, we can find everything, in its right place, the city, the bridge. An else historian, Ibn Shaddad, who lived at the end of the XIIth century, mentionned the palaces in the fortress, the mosque, an hippodrome, cultivated fields and many others buildings.

Then it was a real city above the other one, and the importance and the beauty of remnants prove it. We fond a labyrinth of rooms, underground or on the surface, which windows open suddenly on emptiness, at a vertiginous height, where pieces of ruined and gaping walls seem to be opened just for we could see the valley and the flourished meadows. We continue through vaulted and dark corridors, avoiding nearly some traps, discover fortunately Arabic inscriptions, covered since centuries by stucco, and suddenly going out of the wall, partiallybrusquement ramenées à la lumière du jour, by fragments.

Getting down in narrow dark holes, we emerge often in splendid rooms, with dome and carved decor.

We are on sunday and families made a walk, taking themselves in picture, front of the landcsape. They speak Kurdish, Turkish, and even Arabic. Much of them come to us, puzzled by our surveys and photographies. They talk about the dam, they tell how they are fond of this town. None of them wants to leave, the most of these families occupy that place since centuries.

Their last hope seems to be the international campaign, which the impact could not reassure them entirely. They ask us to take pictures of everything, for showing their town in Europa : May be we could protect them against a pityless bureaucratic system that does not care about the human and histirical value of a site.

And we have not much time, indeed, for the inondation, will happen in two times : In first, the north of the valley will be flood, with the two mausoleums and the bridge built by the princes of Hasankeyf. Then it will be the turn of the south, the town itself, and the lowest caves.

From the site will just remain the tops. The Citadel will be on the shore and from the rock village upper caverns will just remain. And Hasankeyf, this strange and beautiful town will become the « lost city » of Kurdistan, as people have already begin to call it.

The top of the mountain, the upper partis of the Citadel and few inhabited caves : If the Ilisu dam is built, it is just what will still exist from the past of Hasankeyf.

Sandrine Alexie - April 2000

To watch a picture, click on its miniature 

Ortokids’ castle (12th).

Ortokids’castle (12th). the two-coloured decor can be watch on many buildings in the region and in Northern Syria (Citadel of Aleppo). 

Some of these troglodyte caves would be occupied since the Akkadian time (3rd millenium B.C.). 

Northern Valley – The Tigris.

The turbeh (or mausoleum) of Zaynal Beg,a Turkish prince whose the father ruled on an that spread until the Indus river.

Minaret of the mosque al-Rizk (1409).

Bridge built under the AmirFakhr ad-Din Kara ibn Dawud in 1116.

Minaret of the mosque Sulayman (13th-14th).

At the XIXth century, Hasankeyf was excavated by the English traveler Taylor. But the region was forbidden to foreigners during all the 20th century. Today, it is still uneasy to acess and the Turkish authorites are reluctan to let take pictures of the site.

Hasankeyf is a rural region which economical activities still traditional.

The first palace is set in the fortress dominated the south of the town. Its architecture is both military and palatial. Vaults are making with empty tubes of terracotta, that isolated the rooms from external temeratures (quite extreme) and prevented noises to resound in the valley.

Tower-gate of the Citadel. Ortokid period (12th). 

That draw of "dragon tail" is carved on many Kurdish monuments and on their objets d'art (bronzes, ceramics…).

Remnants of the 2nd palace (12th – 14th).

Ruined dome in the mosque.

"There is one God and Muhammad is His Prophet". 

Corridor in the mosque of the citadel. An arabic inscription gives a date : 1394.

Troglodyte habitation.

Roxane photo
April & september 2000
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