The build­ing of a dam in Ilisu has been under con­sid­er­a­tion for over six­ty years now, with the offi­cial goal stat­ed as soil improve­ment and water resources for the Tigris val­ley. And for sev­er­al years, work has been car­ried out on the qui­et, with no infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to the public.

It must be men­tioned that reser­voir impound­ment will cause the destruc­tion of sev­er­al her­itage and arche­o­log­i­cal arte­facts in the small town of Hasankeyf, 80% of which will be cov­ered by the waters. Not to men­tion the hun­dreds of thou­sands of acres drained in Irak, and the tens of thou­sands of per­sons who will be displaced…

If one gives cre­dence to the leg­end relat­ed by a Kur­dish prince of Bitlis at the end of the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry, the town of Hasankeyf was named in hon­or of an Arab pris­on­er by the name of Hasan. Sen­tenced to death, he would have asked the local lord as a final favor to allow him a few moments on a horse before his exe­cu­tion – using the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a dar­ing escape, at which the aston­ished spec­ta­tors cried out: “Hasan keif” (“how Hasan”). For their part, arche­ol­o­gists see a con­nec­tion with the Ara­bic “Hisn Kayfà”, lit­er­aly “for­ti­fied rock ”. And with good rea­son. In medieval times, this town in south­east­ern Turkey indeed grew at the foot of a cliff on the shores of the Tigris. But Hasankeyf also ben­e­fit­ed from the heights on which a fortress-citadel was built in the fourth cen­tu­ry, as pro­tec­tion against the enemy.

The enemy’s face has changed how­ev­er. For it is no longer war but a huge dam that threat­ens the town. At a cost of more than 1,2 bil­lion euros, it is Turkey third largest hydro­elec­tric project. It aims to pro­vide 3,8 bil­lion kilo­watthours of elec­tric­i­ty, some 3% of the nation­al pro­duc­tion, while irri­gat­ing 1,7 mil­lion acres of land. Ankara has made of it a major issue for the region’s devel­op­ment. The project is high­ly con­tro­ver­sial nonethe­less, both local­ly and abroad. And with good reason…

Once oper­a­tional, the dam, built some six­ty kilo­me­ters down­stream from Hasankeyf, could cause the total dis­ap­pear­ance of a true arche­o­log­i­cal trea­sure: besides the numer­ous his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments, the site is dot­ted with a quan­ti­ty of troglodyte caves dug into the rock over ten thou­sand years ago and almost con­tin­u­al­ly occu­pied since. Today, the old­est con­struc­tions date back to the twelfth cen­tu­ry. They are the last wit­ness­es of Hasankeyf’s gold­en age, of a time when it was an impor­tant stag­ing point on the Silk Road. To cross the riv­er, mer­chants con­gre­gat­ing there made use one of the Mid­dle Age’s great­est bridges – it is said to have spanned 200 m: there now remains two pil­lars and an arch. A great palace of which sub­sists a tow­er and many ruins was built north of the ancient citadel, giv­ing region­al author­i­ties a vista from which to keep an eye on cir­cu­la­tion below.

In those days, Haz­ankeyf was in the hands of the Artuqids, Turk­men war­lords who were vas­sals of the great Seld­juk empire, after hav­ing been the prop­er­ty of eight dif­fer­ent dynas­ties: at first an Assyr­i­an strong­hold, Hasankeyf fell under the dom­i­na­tion of Alexan­der the Great, then of the Parthi­ans, the Sas­sanids, the Romans, the Byzan­tines and of two caliphates (the Umeyyad and the Abbasid), before becom­ing the Artuqids’ bas­tion. It was then trans­ferred to the Ayyu­bids, an impor­tant dynasty of Kur­dish ori­gin whose pow­er extend­ed from the west­ern part of the Mid­dle-East all the way to Egypt.

Hasankeyf then resist­ed attacks from the Mon­go­lian empire and sev­er­al build­ings were erect­ed. Ruins of a small palace still stand on the edge of the cliff: above one of its win­dows, one can still dis­tin­guish a low relief depict­ing two lions and texts in Kuf­ic. Low­er down, near the riv­er, the El-Rizk mosque rais­es its impos­ing minaret some 30 meters toward the sky. Close by in the heart of Hasankeyf, the Süley­man mosque has a minaret divid­ed into four storeys, dec­o­rat­ed with plant orna­men­ta­tion and Kuf­ic script. To the east, the Koç mosque is said to have been part of a com­plex includ­ing a school, a can­teen, a dis­pen­sary and a library. To these remains one must add those of the Ak Koyun­lu Turk­men dynasty that briefly occu­pied the town in the fif­teenth cen­try: with its love­ly turquoise enam­eled earth­en­ware and inscrip­tions, the mag­nif­i­cent Zeynel Bey mau­soleum leaves no one indifferent.

The town then fell under the con­trol of the Ottoman empire. All told, it holds 300 mon­u­ments rang­ing from the twelfth to the fif­teenth cen­tu­ry and over 4000 troglodyte dwellings. “A price­less cul­tur­al her­itage », says Ercan Ayboğa, a for­mer hydrol­o­gist who is now the spokesman for the col­lec­tive « Ini­tia­tive to save Hasankeyf », cre­at­ed in 2006.

The site which extends over a large area has only been stud­ied for the past forty years, and the war against the Kurds ham­pered exca­va­tions in the nineties. The digs have only received pal­try fund­ing since then, most­ly allot­ted to the medieval mon­u­ments : there would still be much to dis­cov­er. In the mean­time, work on the Ilisu damn start­ed in 2006 and was inter­rupt­ed on numer­ous occa­sions due to the con­flicts in the region. The build­ing pro­gram con­tin­ues nonethe­less: if the hydro­elec­tric sta­tion has not been com­plet­ed yet, the struc­ture of the dam would now be done. Hasakeyf’s 7000 inhab­i­tants are thus con­demned to wit­ness the dis­ap­pear­ance of the major part of their town in the catch basin. What has been planned to sal­vage the remains?

Almost noth­ing », answers Ercan Ayboğa. The Turk­ish gov­ern­ment announced a pro­tec­tion pro­gram. But the troglodyte dwellings are not includ­ed in it. Offi­cial­ly, only thirten medieval mon­u­ments would be pro­tect­ed. They are to be moved, piece by piece, to a future arche­o­log­i­cal park. Accord­ing to Zeynep Ahun­bay, pro­fes­sor of archi­tec­tur­al his­to­ry at Istanbul’s Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty, this can­not be done with­out dete­ri­o­ra­tion: the dec­o­ra­tive wall coat­ings will be lost, for instance. More­over, the Turk­ish author­i­ties will not nec­es­sar­i­ly keep their word. Since 2009, large for­eign investors (Switzer­land, Ger­many, Aus­tria) have pulled out of the project, Turkey not hav­ing respect­ed some of the required cri­te­ria con­cern­ing the envi­ron­ment, cul­tur­al arte­facts and pop­u­la­tion transfers.

Thus far, although the Turk­ish law for the pro­tec­tion of cul­tur­al and nat­ur­al goods states that « irre­mov­able cul­tur­al arte­facts must be pro­tect­ed », a sin­gle mon­u­ment has been saved: the mau­soleum built for Zeynel Bey, son of Uzun Hasan, the founder of the Ak Koyun­lu dynasty. After two years of prepara­to­ry work, a Dutch con­trac­tor car­ried out the oper­a­tion, using a spe­cial plat­form set on over 150 wheels. A meter-deep con­crete pedestal was poured under the mon­u­ment pri­or to its trans­fer onto the plat­form by hydraulic cranes. On May 12 last, the mon­u­ment was trans­ferred to a loca­tion some two kilo­me­ters fur­ther, out of reach of the waters, thanks to a sys­tem of rails and a spe­cial road coating.

Europe was against the dam, but we will move eight more ancient build­ings » proud­ly announced Vey­sel Eroğlu, the Turk­ish min­is­ter of Waters and Forests. He added: « It will con­sti­tute an exam­ple for the world. » An exam­ple? Oh no! Besides the troglodyte dwellings that will be lost for­ev­er – entire por­tions of the cliff were destroyed mid-August – some 670 000 acres of marsh­land will be drained in the ancient land of Sümer (the south­ern part of ancient Mesopotamia, the present-day Irak). And if, for lack of sup­port from the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment, Hasankeyf was not added to the Unesco’s list of World Her­itage sites despite being one of the only sites in the world meet­ing nine of the ten required cri­te­ria (a sin­gle one is usu­al­ly suf­fi­cient!) the Ira­ki marsh­lands are list­ed since the sum­mer of 2016. And final­ly, when the major part of Hasankeyf and some ten vil­lages will be sub­merged in Turkey, tens of thou­sands will be deprived of water in Irak…

https://youtu.be/7eiKUIvczlE

The Turk­ish author­i­ties couldn’t care less. Espe­cial­ly since, after the with­draw­al of for­eign coun­tries and con­trac­tors, some multi­na­tion­als remained as part­ners and Turk­ish banks have pitched in with loans to the con­sor­tium build­ing the dam. Worse yet, the State claims it is pro­vid­ing work to the inhab­i­tants (and some are indeed work­ing on the dam) and relo­cat­ing them: in fact, it buys back their homes at low rates (500 Turk­ish lira per square meter) and sells them oth­er homes at twice the price on the heights in the new town, offer­ing them – such roy­al treat­ment! – the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an inter­est-free loan…It is there­fore unlike­ly that cam­paigns in sup­port of Hasankeyf or of the Ira­ki marsh­lands will make the gov­ern­ment back down. Besides, as some have point­ed out, if the gov­ern­ment is so attached to the dam project, it is cer­tain­ly not devoid of polit­i­cal afterthoughts.

In destroy­ing Hasankeyf, the Turk­ish State deprives the Kur­dish inhab­i­tants of their resources, the rich her­itage of the area hold­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an open air muse­um. What’s more, the build­ing of dams in south­east­ern Turkey com­pli­cates the pur­suit of mil­i­tary oper­a­tions by the Kurds. Car­ry­ing out actions in sup­port for Hasankeyf is dif­fi­cult. The arrest of French jour­nal­ist Math­ias Depar­don last May is proof enough: more than ever these days, it bodes ills to dis­play curios­i­ty over what is going on in that part of Turkey.

 

READ ALSO To the World Water Council
Water is the source of life for all species.
Protecting water is protecting life, the planet and our future.

Trans­la­tion by Renée Lucie Bourges
iknowiknowiknowblog.wordpress.com
En français : “Hasankeyf, un pat­ri­moine unique bien­tôt sous l’eau” Cliquez pour lire

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