Dara lies in the village of Oğuz, thirty kilometres south-east of Mardin. It was not a city that grew slowly: the emperor Anastasius (491–518) founded it in 505 as a garrison, built to hold the eastern frontier of the Eastern Roman empire against the Sasanians. It became one of the most important settlements of Upper Mesopotamia, and lost its purpose when Rome's power in the region collapsed.
Much of it is cut into the rock. A wall four kilometres round enclosed the city, and the citadel sits on the flat top of a hill fifty metres high on its northern side. Walking the site you pass the remains of a church, a palace, a market, a dungeon, an arsenal and a water dam.
The cisterns beneath the city are the part that surprises visitors: they are enormous, and they served the city twice over — as its water supply and as part of its defence. Around the village are cave dwellings whose history reaches back to the late Roman period.
The other thing worth the walk is the cemetery. On the wide hills west of the city, rock-cut tombs were carved out of the bedrock in the form of deep, broad valleys. Islamic-period graves also lie within the site, along with a tomb thought to date from the 14th or 15th century.
The site is reached from the Mardin–Nusaybin road, turning ten kilometres inland at Akıncılar village. There is no minibus service, so a car or taxi is necessary.
Getting there
- Access
- On the Mardin–Nusaybin road, ten kilometres in from Akıncılar village. There is no dolmuş service.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Mardin as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 3.1 °C in January to 29.9 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (114 mm) and lightest in August (2 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:30, closed Monday
