Hasankeyf

Hasankeyf occupies a striking position on the Tigris, where a citadel rises above cliffs honeycombed with caves. Known in Arabic as Hisn Kayfa, the Rock Fortress, it flourished under the Artuqids and Ayyubids. Their palaces and mosques overlooked a great bridge that carried traffic across the river. The bridge and the fortified heights made the town an important crossing between the lands north and south of the Tigris.

The Ilkhanid Mongols plundered Hasankeyf in 1260, but the Ayyubid rulers continued to hold it through much of the later Middle Ages. In 1462 Uzun Hasan of the Aq Qoyunlu captured the town after a long siege. His son Zeynel Bey died fighting the Ottomans at Otlukbeli in 1473; a cylindrical brick mausoleum, decorated with turquoise and dark blue tiles and inscriptions in geometric Kufic script, was built for him on the opposite bank. Its design drew on the funerary architecture of Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Repairs to the old bridge also date from the Aq Qoyunlu period.

Ottoman power reached Hasankeyf after the victory at Chaldiran, and the town entered the empire in 1515. Its local dynasty retained authority for a time before its emirate ended in 1524. The castle, river crossing and monumental tombs reflected a long history in which local lords and greater powers contested control of the upper Tigris.