Diyarbakır Fortress
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Diyarbakır Fortress, is a historical fortress in
Sur Sur or SUR or El Sur (Spanish "the South") may refer to: Geography * Sur or Shur (Bible), the wilderness of Sur/Shur from the Book of Exodus * Sur (river), a river of Bavaria, Germany * Súr, a village in Hungary * Sur, a district of the city 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 consists of an inner fortress and an outer fortress."Diyarbakır Kalesi ve Surları (Diyarbakır)"
.
The main gates of the fortress are: Dağ (Mountain) Gate, Urfa Gate,
Mardin Mardin ( ku, Mêrdîn; ar, ماردين; syr, ܡܪܕܝܢ, Merdīn; hy, Մարդին) is a city in southeastern Turkey. The capital of Mardin Province, it is known for the Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on ...
Gate, and Yeni (New) Gate. The walls come from the old Roman city of Amida and were constructed in their present form in the mid-fourth century AD by the emperor Constantius II. According to Armenian historian
Movses Khorenatsi Movses Khorenatsi (ca. 410–490s AD; hy, Մովսէս Խորենացի, , also written as ''Movses Xorenac‘i'' and Moses of Khoren, Moses of Chorene, and Moses Chorenensis in Latin sources) was a prominent Armenian historian from the late an ...
, the fortifications and powerful walls of Amid-Diyarbakir were built in the middle of 6th century BC under King Tigranes of and during the Yervanduni (Orontid dynasty).They are the widest and longest complete defensive walls in the world after only the
Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...
(the Theodosian Walls for example are longer in length, but are not continuous)
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
added the building to their tentative list on 2000, and listed it as a
World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...
in 2015 along with
Hevsel Gardens The Hevsel Gardens ( tr, Hevsel Bahçeleri), are the seven hundred hectares of cultivated, fertile lands near the Tigris in eastern Turkey, between the Diyarbakır Fortress and the river. The fortified city was enclosed by a two-part system of de ...
.


Conservation

From 2000 to 2007, begun during the Mayorship of
Feridun Çelik Feridun Çelik (born 1966, Kulp, Diyarbakır) is Kurdish–Turkish a former Mayor of Diyarbakır and politician of the People's Democracy Party (HADEP) and Democratic People's Party (DEHAP). Biography He studied law at the Dicle Universit ...
, a major restoration of the Fortress' walls was executed. Buildings that were built directly on the wall were removed, the walls were cleaned and a park was given place alongside the walls. Though the walls and fortress itself were once compared to the Great Wall of China, this started to change as wars broke out during 2015; walls from the fortress collapsed, along with a mosque, two churches, and the homes of many civilians, forcing some sections to be abandoned. As the war continued, the government of Turkey and UNESCO jointly began a reconstruction and preservation effort, intending to complete it within two years, starting with the demolition of part of the city. On July 4, 2015, UNESCO added the fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape to UNESCO's World Heritage List. UNESCO's main focus was to protect the environment of the land itself, more than the heritage of the land. The Turkish Prime Minister also spoke of plans to reconstruct the city walls as a great tourist attraction intended to resemble Paris; this provoked considerable controversy in Diyarbakır, with some locals arguing that they would lose their ancient culture heritage.


Architecture

Diyarbakir fortress is constructed with stone, black
basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
, and adobe, and has gone through countless renovations; the basalt fortifications are exceptionally durable, one reason why the structure has remained relatively intact for over 2000 years. Diyarbakir fortress is among the best surviving examples of a castle or fort built with a natural feature like a cliffside or body of water on one side as a boundary. The walls have a symbolic function as well as a defensive purpose, with inscriptions on the inner city's walls (the fort) that testify to the city of Diyarbakir's history. Today, Diyarbakir Fortress can be divided into two categories, the bailey and the citadel. In the northeast, the citadel contains the first settlement inside Diyarbakir, and those walls stretch 598 meters long. The bailey houses a tower and the city walls, surrounding the much more urban walled city region of Diyarbakir. Most of these walls are constructed with traditional masonry and construction styles; the towers consist of 2-4 floors and are 4.4 meters thick on the ground floor and get thinner on higher floors. The castle plans reveal the dominance of two different building forms, circular and tetragonal. The walls were divided into five groups, four of which contained the towers around the four main gates, while the fifth contained the citadel towers. It has been found that 65 of the original 82 towers still remain on the outside of the city's walls and 18 of the citadel's towers remain today. Due to cultural differences, the fort has undergone some modifications. The fort was reconstructed, repaired and or heightened over time. However, the overall typology has remained constant in the fort's renovations.


Construction

Diyarbakir fortress was first built in 297 AD by Romans. In 349 AD the walls got significantly expanded under the order of Emperor Constantius II. Over the next 1500+ years, these walls were expanded and fortified using volcanic rock from the surrounding region. There are four main gates and 82 watch towers on the walls. The Diyarbakir city walls have an ancient history dating back to the Romans. The towers at Diyarbakir were mainly built by the Romans and later reconstructed by the Ottomans when they took over the city in the 15th and 16th centuries. During the defeat of the Safavids at Diyarbakir, the Ottomans destroyed the walls with the use of cannons and therefore had to be rebuilt. Today, the walls are largely intact, and form a ring around the old city that is over 3 miles in circumference. The walls are over 33 feet high and are about 10–16 feet thick. In 1930 a part of the wall got demolished. They are the widest and longest complete defensive walls in the world after the
Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...
.


History

Diyarbakir Fortress was built, used, and rebuilt during the Roman and Ottoman periods, including the Diyarbakir city walls that measure up to 53 meters long. There are both inner and outer walls; the site also has several gates and towers. Included on the walls are about 63 inscriptions from various historical periods including remains from the
Hurrians The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Northern Mes ...
,
Medes The Medes (Old Persian: ; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were an ancient Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media between western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, the ...
,
Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...
, Romans,
Sassanians The Sasanian dynasty was the house that founded the Sasanian Empire, ruling this empire from 224 to 651 AD in Persia (modern-day Iran). It began with Ardashir I, who named the dynasty as ''Sasanian'' in honour of his grandfather (or father), Sa ...
, Byzantines,
Marwanids Marwanids may refer to: * Marwanids (Diyar Bakr), a Kurdish dynasty that ruled in Diyar Bakr in the 10th–11th centuries * Marwanids, a branch of the Umayyad dynasty Umayyad dynasty ( ar, بَنُو أُمَيَّةَ, Banū Umayya, Sons of Um ...
, Ayyubids, and
Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...
. The city is considered to have a "multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-culture character". In 2015, the war between the Turkish Army and Kurdish guerillas resulted in damage to the fortress and surrounding monuments, disrupting government plans to conserve the historical fortress in hopes of attracting tourists to the Diyarbakir cultural area. About one-third of the historic Old Town was destroyed by the Turkish government after the clashes ended, irreversibly damaging the ancient city.


See also

*
List of World Heritage Sites in Turkey The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Turkey accepted ...


References


External links


Sur Tour Guide
– Sur Government web site
Van Berchem, Max, & Josef Strzygowski (1910). Amida: Materiaux pour l'épigraphie et l'histoire Musulmanes du Diyar-Bekr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diyarbakir Fortress World Heritage Sites in Turkey Sur, Diyarbakır Forts in Turkey Castles in Turkey Fortifications articles needing attention to supporting materials 4th-century fortifications Roman Empire Mesopotamia City walls