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Deleted member 17724
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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/...res-to-flood-12000-year-old-city-to-build-dam
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After the half-hour drive from Batman in south-east Turkey, the ancient city of Hasankeyf, which sits on the banks of the Tigris River, appears as an oasis.
Hasankeyf is thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on Earth, dating as far back as 12,000 years and containing thousands of caves, churches and tombs.
But this jewel of human history will soon be lost; most of the settlement is about to be flooded as part of the highly controversial Ilisu dam project.
Walking along the mountainside facing the town, Ayhan reached a cave clearly marked with an engraved cross, indicating an ancient church. “It’s not just our story, Hasankeyf, it’s also your story, because it’s the human story,” he said.
It is unknown what year the church dates back to. Only 10% of the area has been explored by archaeologists.
Under the church is a tomb where piles of human bones have surfaced. “The government doesn’t even respect the dead,” Ayhan said. “They are barbaric.”
Hasankeyf has been part of many different cultures in its long history, including ancient Mesopotamia, Byzantium, Arab empires and the Ottoman empire, but Hakan Ozoglu, a history professor at the University of Central Florida, said the settlement predates all these civilisations.
“We have references to the town in several ancient texts in different languages such as Assyrian, Armenian, Kurdish, Arabic,” he said.
The professor says Hasankeyf is a laboratory that could provide many answers about the past. “Such rare physical evidence of the human past must be protected at all cost,” Ozoglu said.
Only eight historical monuments – including a tower from what was said to be the oldest university in the world, half of an old Roman gate to the city and a women’s hamam dating to around 1400 – have been saved from Hasankeyf. The pieces were moved 3km away and now stand on a vast plain.