Sanliurfa

عن المكان

An ancient city on the edge of Mesopotamia, where 12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe sits a short drive from the prophet Abraham's legendary birthplace, fish-filled sacred pools and the beehive houses of Harran. The deep anchor is Göbeklitepe, the 11,000-year-old hilltop sanctuary whose carved T-shaped pillars rewrote the timeline of human civilisation when they were uncovered. In the city itself, Balıklıgöl, the sacred carp pool where tradition says Abraham was thrown into the fire by King Nimrod, sits in a garden of stone arcades and Ottoman mosques. The 19th-century citadel rises directly behind it. The Şanlıurfa Archaeology Museum and the adjacent Haleplibahçe Mosaic Museum together hold the original Göbeklitepe finds and one of the richest collections of late-antique mosaics in Turkey. Beyond the city, the province opens onto landscapes that look almost biblical: Harran, with its conical mud-brick beehive houses, the ruins of one of the world's oldest universities and a centuries-old caravan culture; Halfeti, the half-submerged village on the Euphrates reached by boat through still green water; and the wider Mesopotamian plain that produced isot pepper, raw çiğ köfte, pistachio katmer and the bitter mırra coffee Urfa pours into hand-held cups. A different Turkey, in food, architecture and time. Eight places worth your time. Tap a photograph, the map will follow. 01 Göbeklitepe The oldest known monumental temple complex on Earth, built 11,000 years ago by hunter-gatherers. T-shaped limestone pillars carved with animal reliefs, arranged in circles. UNESCO World Heritage, protected under a modern canopy. Twenty minutes outside Urfa. The second sacred pool of Balıklıgöl, lying directly below the citadel and surrounded by leafy gardens, tea houses and stone arcades. Tradition holds that the lake formed from the tears of Zeliha, daughter of King Nimrod, who fell in love with Abraham. Quieter than the main Balıklıgöl pool, it is a favourite spot for an afternoon glass of tea in the shade as the citadel walls rise straight from the water.

معلومات سريعة

المدينة

أورفة

العنوان

محافظة أورفة، تركيا