Turkey Guide
The Euphrates and Tigris basin
East of the Mediterranean coast, you leave the tourist hordes behind and the going gets rougher: there are no full-scale resorts, few travelling companions and only minor conventional attractions. Yet for many, the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, a broad, fan-shaped flood plain ringed on three sides by the mountains containing their headwaters, is the most exotic part of Turkey, offering a number of compelling ancient sites and some fascinating, isolated towns.
Historically, this has always been a border zone where opposing empires and civilizations have met and often clashed. Settlements on the Euphrates formed the eastern boundary of the Roman Empire against the Parthians, and subsequently the Byzantines pushed their frontier further southeast against the Persian heartlands. With the birth of the new religion, Islam, in 632 AD, Byzantine authority began to crumble under pressure from the Arabs to the east and south. Thereafter, almost everybody of any import in Middle Eastern affairs seems to have passed through at one time or another: Arabs, Crusaders, Armenians, Selçuks, Turcomans, Mongols and finally the French, who invaded southeastern Turkey as part of a wider attempt by the victorious World War I Allies to break up the defeated Ottoman Empire.
Highlights
1 Gaziantep Archeology Museum A magnificent collection of Roman-era mosaics, rescued from the drowned site of Zeugma and displayed in a state-of-the-art museum.
2 Nemrut Dağı The massive stone heads of Hellenistic deities glare out from a remote mountain-top.
3 Diyarbakır Walk around the mighty basalt walls of this predominately Kurdish city, high above medieval alleys teeming with street kids.
4 Mardin A hilltop town of beautiful Arab-style houses interspersed with graceful mosques and solid churches.
5 Hasankeyf A once grand city, spectacularly situated on a soaring cliff overlooking the green Tigris.