ÇAYÖNÜ SITES
It is located at Hilar Caves within the boundaries of Sesveren Pınar of Ergani district of Diyarbakır province. The excavations and investigations carried out since 1964 revealed it as one of the oldest settlements of Anatolia, with traces of settling going back to the 8th millennium B.C. In these sites which belong to the Early Agricultural Village Communities period, various stages within the Neolithic Age itself were revealed.
ÜÇTEPE RUINS
It is located at Üçtepe village of Bismil District of Diyarbakır. Excavations were started in 1988 at Üçtepe which is one of the bigger tumuli of the area, under the scientific leadership of Prof. Dr. Veli Sevin by the Directorate of Diyarbakır Museum. Besides significant works from the New Assyrian era, important findings from the Hurri-Mitanni, Hellenistic and Roman Periods were discovered.
DIYARBAKIR CASTLE
Located at the Provincial centre, the magnificent Diyarbakır Castle is 5700m long, 12m high and 3-5m wide, with a plan resembling a turbot fish. The castle has four entrances and eighty-two bastions. The most important of the later is the Bastion of Seven Brothers, built in 1208 by the Artuklu King Melik Salih Memduh. It has double-headed eagle and winged lion reliefs. An inscription goes around the bastion like a sash. The castle which was built in the year 349 during the Roman period, was repaired at various times during the Islamic period, and took its present form with several additions.
MALABADI BRIDGE
It is on the Diyarbakır – Batman highway, on the right hand side of the new road. It was build in 1147 during the Artukoğulları Period. The feet of the large pointed arch at the centre are based on rocks. There are two chambers of 4.50m X 5.30m size at both ends of the bridge where the guards responsible for the security of the bridge could be sent and the caravan travellers could rest. Inside the spiral columned niches on the gullies of the bridge, there are paintings of human, animal and sun motifs.
Diyarbakır Museums and Historical Cultural Heritage
DİYARBAKIR MUSEUMS
AND HISTORICAL CULTURAL HERITAGE
Archaeology Museum
The first museum in Diyarbakır was created in 1934 at the Senceriye (Zinciriye) Medrese (theological school) which is an extension of Ulu Cami (Grand Mosque). It moved to its new premises on Elazığ Street in 1985.
Pieces, starting with the Neolithic Age and including those from the Old Bronze, Urartu, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Akkoyunlu and Ottoman Periods are displayed in chronological order. Coins from different eras, most of them coming from the Artuklu Period, and local artefacts of ethnographic character are also exhibited at the museum.
Ziya Gökalp Museum – Residence
The house, which is one of the typical examples of civic architecture of Diyarbakır, was built in 1808. It is a two storey structure built with black basalt stone and designed in two sections for men and women. Its different spaces are arranged around an inner courtyard. One of the façades is a double arched antechamber with a portico, which, with the pool located in this section, offers a pleasant sitting area.
The house is adorned with the white decorations which the locals call “ciz” or “kehal”, and there are inscriptions in Arabic above some of the doors.
This house, where the famous scholar Ziya Gökalp was born in 1876, was purchased from his inheritors in 1953 and opened to public as a museum-residence on March 23, 1956. Ethnographic artefacts of the region are also displayed there in addition to the personal belongings of the writer.
Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı Museum – Residence
(Cultural Museum)
The history of the building which is located on Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı Street in the Cami-i Kebir Section of the city at Diyarbakır’s centre goes back to 1820. It has survived to the present day as one of the most beautiful examples of the Diyarbakır civic architecture.
The house was originally built on the basis of men’s and women’s quarters but the male quarters (selamlık) were torn down later. It is a two storey structure built from cut black basalt stone.
An introvert architectural layout was adopted for this building where all the façades are oriented towards an inner courtyard. The single storey wooden entrance opens up to the courtyard with a corridor.
The various spaces are arranged behind the façades taking seasonal climatic conditions into consideration. The white decorations called “cız” or “kehal” were also used here in their best form.
The House of Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı was transferred to our Ministry in 1973. It was rearranged with the personal belongings of the poet and artefacts of ethnographic value from Diyarbakır area, and opened to the public as a museum-residence.
