The house where the poet Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı was born and spent his childhood was built in 1733. It carries all the features of the traditional domestic architecture of Diyarbakır: four wings ranged around a central courtyard, a ground floor and one storey above, built entirely of basalt.
The building was originally divided into private and public quarters; the public part has been lost and the private part survives. It is laid out for the climate, with a summer section on the south, a winter section on the north, a spring section on the east and an autumn section on the west. On the faces looking onto the courtyard, the decorative elements known as cas are used to good effect, lightening the heaviness of the basalt and giving the building some movement.
Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı was born in this house on 2 October 1910 and passed his childhood and youth here. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism bought the house in 1973, restored it, and opened it as a museum on 19 October 1973, in the fiftieth year of the republic, to keep his memory alive.
On display are his personal belongings: a pen, a comb and its case, a cufflink and his passport.
The museum stands on Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı Sokak in the Camii Kebir quarter of Sur. There is a charge for entry.
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- 1 April to 31 October 08:30 - 19:00, ticket desk closing at 18:30, open on Monday; 31 October to 1 April 08:30 - 17:00, ticket desk closing at 16:30, closed Monday
When to go
- Climate
- Across Diyarbakır as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 1.8 °C in January to 31 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (70 mm) and lightest in August (1 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
