The so-called Tigris tunnel is a

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

approximately 50 miles north of

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. It has a length of about . The Berkilin Cay flows through this cave. It forms a source of the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

, but not the main one, although the exit was long believed to be this. In fact the spring is near

Bingöl Bingöl ( diq, Çolig; ku, Çewlik; hy, Ճապաղջուր, translit=Chapaghjur) is a city in Eastern Turkey and the capital of Bingöl Province. Etymology One of the historical names for the city, ''Bingöl'' literally means ''thousand lak ...

not far away from the Tigris tunnel. In its vicinity there are several archaeological monuments, three

Assyrian Empire Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

and

Neo-Assyrian The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...

rock reliefs A rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, and sometimes found as part of, or in conjunction with, ro ...

and five inscriptions. Best preserved are the rock reliefs of

Tiglath-Pileser I Tiglath-Pileser I (; from the Hebraic form of akk, , Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, "my trust is in the son of Ešarra") was a king of Assyria during the Middle Assyrian period (1114–1076 BC). According to Georges Roux, Tiglath-Pileser was "one of t ...

and

Shalmaneser III Shalmaneser III (''Šulmānu-ašarēdu'', "the god Shulmanu is pre-eminent") was king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his father Ashurnasirpal II in 859 BC to his own death in 824 BC. His long reign was a constant series of campai ...

that are carved into the wall of the Tigris tunnel. Their production in 852 BC is shown in the relief of the bronze door bands of the

Balawat Gates The Balawat Gates are three sets of decorated bronze bands that had adorned the main doors of several buildings at Balawat (ancient Imgur-Enlil), dating to the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) and Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BC). Thei ...

, now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

.Bronze band from the gates of the palace of Shalmaneser III
British Museum, accessed 11 December 2013 Above the Tunnel there is a natural rock arch that is connected to the tunnel by a stairway created by the

Urartians Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Va ...

. Above the exit of the Tunnel there are further caves. The biggest of them bears a badly preserved relief and inscription of Shalmaneser III.Kreppner, 374-375 File:Höhle oberhalb des Tigristunnels.jpg, Cave above the tunnel exit File:Relief in Höhle oberhalb des Tigristunnels.jpg, Relief of Shalmaneser III

References

Sources

*Kreppner, Florian Janoscha, "Public Space in Nature: The Case of Neo-Assyrian Rock-Reliefs", ''Altorientalische Forschungen'', 29/2 (2002): 367-383
online at Academia.edu
* Andreas Schachner (2009): ''Assyriens Könige an einer der Quellen des Tigris.'' Archäologische Forschungen im Höhlensystem des sogenannten Tigris-Tunnels. Tübingen.

External links

{{Commons category, Tigristunnel

Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia Geography of Diyarbakır Province Tigris River Landforms of Diyarbakır Province Caves of Turkey Rock reliefs in Turkey Assyrian art and architecture