Dunaysir

Dunaysir stood on the plain south of Mardin, at a meeting of roads from Urfa and Diyarbakır towards Mosul. Under the Artuqids it was a prosperous trading and lodging place, with markets, inns, baths, mosques and schools. Its Great Mosque, completed in 1204, preserves the workmanship of that age, including a richly carved prayer niche.

Repeated raids and wars diminished the wealth of the town. During the fifteenth century it passed between the Kara Koyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu, and later came under Safavid rule. Ottoman forces took the district in the early sixteenth century and incorporated it into their province. Although Dunaysir no longer enjoyed the prosperity of its Artuqid heyday, the mosque and other buildings remained as witnesses to the town's former position on the roads of upper Mesopotamia.