Mardin and Sanliurfa

After leaving Midyat we traveled a bit over an hour back to Mardin. The travel literature calls it “magical Mardin.” It sounds a bit hokey but in a way it’s true. The town really does hang on a hill below ruins of a fortress of some sort. That much we could see on our way through town to Hasankeyf. It was dark when we arrived back in Mardin, and there were spotlights shining on the upper cliffs. The hotel was wonderful. It had a pillow-top bed with a real down comforter and a large bathroom with a bathtub (haven’t even seen one since arriving in Turkey) and shower with actual doors. I had planned to have a good soak after dinner, but the metal stopped operated by pulling a handle in the tub was missing. I assumed that meant they didn’t was us to take baths to conserve water. However, those staying in other rooms reported – the next morning – that their rooms had stoppers. Oh well. I had a great sleep.



The next morning we all pilled into the bus to visit an active Syrian Orthodox monastery on the backside of the mountain. Someone asked the young guide if he were Christian, and he answered yes, Orthodox. The little chapel was touching. There was one old fresco visible, apparently the only one that survived the rampaging Mongols. For some reason. I just started to tear up standing in that little chapel. I don’t know exactly why. Perhaps it was the perseverance against terrible odds that the monastery represents. I wanted to spend some time just sitting there and our guide said okay. But she came looking for me very shortly – afraid that I might somehow get left behind – so my moment of contemplation didn’t last long.

The only survivng original fresco in the chapel

From there we visited a madrasa. Like the Church after the fall of the Roman Empire, it had assumed many of the civic functions. It had been not only a school but a hospital and many other things. And Timurlane is said to have beheaded its founder – legend has it that the redddish stones in one of the interior walls were colored by his blood.

Mardin-Style Garbage Collection

Having visited two sites outside the town, we drove back into Mardin. There are actually only two real streets in the old town, streets that can be used by cars or buses. However, there is a network of winding, narrow streets – some residential and others shopping streets. In fact, the streets are so narrow that they use donkeys with wooden boxes strapped on either side. We visited a mosque with a little niche that had four hairs purported to come from Mohammed’s beard and a Syrian Orthodox church, where someone I assume to be a clergyman gave quite a long talk in Turkish. The members of our group listened intently and I recognized the words for “bread” and “wine,” so I assume he was talking about the schism between his church and the rest of orthodox Christendom. I asked on of the English-speaking Turks in our group to ask this gentleman if any baptized Christian could take communion in his church or if you had to be of their father. He answered in perfect English that anyone who believed in Jesus Christ was welcome to participate fully in their services. Too bad we didn’t know earlier that he spoke English because some of us had a lot of questions for him.

Hairs from Mohammed's Beard in a little vial on the pedestal

We were then turned loose to explore. Some of us decided to visit the local archeological museum. The building was more impressive than the collection. We had been told we would see more Syrian-style architecture. The buildings were all quite boxy with lots of pointed arches and intricate decorative stone carvings. They appeared to be limestone, clearly the color of the surrounding countryside. That’s probably why you have to be almost there before you see it.

Archeological Museum

After a very late lunch, we left of Sanliurfa, about an hour east of Gaziantep. They like to claim that they are the site of the Biblical Ur, Abraham’s ancestral home. Biblical scholars pretty well agree that they found Ur of the Chaldees in the southern end of the Tigris-Euphrates basis, in Iraq. But we didn’t argue. We had been scheduled to stop at Haran, which also figures in Abraham’s story, but it was too dark. Instead we stopped at a famous carp pool, part of a large mosque complex and pilgrimage site for Muslims. Legend has it that Nimrod tried to burn Abraham to death. However, God turned Abrahams tears into the pool and the fire into carp. For 50 cents you can buy fish food. It’s then that you see how many carp there actually are in the pool.

Drummer from the traditional "band" We were sitting on the floor around low U-shaped tables.

We finished off the evening listening to traditional Turkish music, eating (again) and dancing. I really enjoyed that evening – too bad it didn’t happen earlier because the group really jelled having fun together. A young couple joined us in Sanliurfa, friends of some of the people on the tour. They were celebrating their first anniversary. At the end of the evening, they dressed the couple in traditional costume and several of the girls danced around them holding candles. A fitting end to the tour.