The Mor Aho monastery stands in open country at Bani Mahar, two kilometres north of Üçyol village in the Hasankeyf district of Batman. It is thought to have been built while the Syriacs held Hasankeyf in the early period, but no inscription giving a date has been found. It is also known as Deyr Mahar, which in local usage means the church of Mahar.
The building is rectangular and stands alone: there is nothing around it but farmland. Local materials were used — cut stone, rubble stone and the slaked lime known as ces — and there is a well in the monastery garden. Beside the Tigris is an orchard known locally as the Attafiye gardens, thought to have belonged to the monastery. As its congregation left the region the monastery was abandoned and fell derelict. It is now a registered monument and has been renewed through restoration work.
Getting there
- Access
- In the Banı Mahar countryside, 2 km north of Üç Yol village in Hasankeyf.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Batman as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2.6 °C in January to 30.3 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in March (76 mm) and lightest in July (2 mm). Long-term means for 1952-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
