Guide
Hısnıkeyfa means rock fortress or stone castle, and over time the name became Hasankeyf. The place sits on an important land and water route between Diyarbakır and Cizre, and the combination of trade passing through and war passing it by made it a cultural crossroads. The Romans built a fortress here to keep watch on the Persian frontier. After the Umayyads and Abbasids the city passed to the Artuqids, and under them — ruling Hasankeyf together with Diyarbakır, Mardin and Harput — it had its finest period. The region came under Seljuk rule after the battle of Manzikert in 1071 and was taken by the Ayyubids in 1232. The Akkoyunlu held it after them until the beginning of the 15th century; Hasankeyf witnessed the battle of Otlukbeli between Uzun Hasan and Mehmed II in 1473, passed to the Safavids, and came under Ottoman rule with Selim I's eastern campaign in 1515.
Anyone planning a visit needs to know what the Ilısu dam changed. Hasankeyf mound now lies beneath the waters of the reservoir. Rescue excavation carried out before the flooding produced finds significant enough that the mound is counted among the oldest and most important neolithic settlement areas in Anatolia. Alongside Iron Age and Hellenistic material, the site also yielded important buildings and building groups of the eastern Roman, Artuqid, Ayyubid, Akkoyunlu and Ottoman periods.
Several of the principal monuments no longer stand where they were built. The tomb and complex of Zeynel Bey, the Artuqid bath, the tomb and lodge of Imam Abdullah, the Ayyubid Kızlar mosque, the Orta Kapı, the mosque and complex of Süleyman Han and the Er-Rızk mosque and complex were moved between 2017 and 2019 and set up in the new Hasankeyf Cultural Park. Finds from the excavations are displayed in the Hasankeyf Museum and the Batman Museum.
Hasankeyf lies on the Batman–Midyat road, which puts it on a well-used crossing point. It is 37 kilometres from Batman, 44 from Midyat and 110 from Mardin. The nearest airport is at Batman; Diyarbakır airport is 135 kilometres away, and Mardin also has one. Batman is reachable by rail from anywhere in the country.
