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Diyarbakır, City of Basalt

Anyone arriving in Diyarbakır for the first time notices the colour of the city at once. Walls, towers, inn courtyards, mansion facades and paving stones meet in a tone between dark grey and black.

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Diyarbakır, City of Basalt

Anyone arriving in Diyarbakır for the first time notices the colour of the city at once. Walls, towers, inn courtyards, mansion facades and paving stones meet in a tone between dark grey and black. The name of that colour is basalt. A 2018 study by Emine Ekinci Dağtekin of the Faculty of Architecture at Dicle University writes that basalt dominates the whole city, and that the traditional fabric, from the walls to the narrow streets and from monumental buildings to courtyard houses, was built from this stone. This article explains where the stone comes from, how it was worked, and where and how you can read it in the city today.

The gift of Karacadağ

Diyarbakır's stone was not brought from far away; the city already stands on it. According to the sources cited by Dağtekin, the basalt lavas of Karacadağ, southwest of the city, are about 80 metres thick and spread over a wide area. The Karacadağ volcanics, which began erupting about 11 million years ago, formed a flat plateau as they approached the Tigris, and Diyarbakır was built on this plateau. The same study notes that cooling cracks in the basalt can be seen on the steep slope facing the Tigris below the walls, and that the stones cut for the walls were carried over the shortest possible distance.

The volcanic origin of Karacadağ shows itself not only in buildings but also in the soil. TÜRKPATENT's registration document for Karacadağ Rice writes that the soils of the basin were formed from volcanic ejecta and that the surface is covered with stones of all sizes. In other words, the same mountain shaped both the city's walls and the soil of the fields around it.

The properties of basalt

According to the material information compiled by Dağtekin, Diyarbakır basalt is dark grey to black, does not absorb water, and is highly resistant to frost, impact and abrasion. The stone occurs in porous and non porous forms. A 2017 study by Gülin Payaslı Oğuz and Fatma Meral Halifeoğlu of Dicle University reports that craftsmen call these two types female and male. The porous female stone is easier to work, while the non porous male stone is harder to work but stronger.

This difference determined where the stone was used. According to the same study, load-bearing elements such as walls, arches, columns and capitals are made of non porous basalt, while porous stone is preferred for the floors of iwans, rooms and courtyards. Dağtekin likewise writes that non porous stone was used for inscriptions, arches, facades, jambs, lintels, thresholds, pools, windows and doors, and porous stone for courtyard paving. When you enter a courtyard, comparing the texture of the stone under your feet with the stone in the arch is the easiest way to see this distinction.

The name Kara Amid

Basalt even entered the city's name. According to Dağtekin's sources, this black appearance gave the city names such as Kara Amid, Karakale and Karahamid. The study reports that travellers who visited the city over the centuries described the walls and the black stone with admiration. One of them was Nasir Khusraw, who came to the city in 1046; he wrote that the city stood on a single rock and was surrounded by a fortress of black stone. Evliya Çelebi also recorded that the castle and the buildings were made of black, hard stone and that the city was called Kara Amid.

The walls, the stone's greatest work

The place to see basalt on its largest scale is the city walls. According to a restoration study quoted by the Diyarbakır Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Diyarbakır Castle consists of two parts, the Inner Castle and the Outer Castle, and although sources give different dates for the construction of the walls, they jointly point to the middle of the 4th century. The circumference of the walls is about 5,200 metres, and together with the Inner Castle the total length reaches about 5,800 metres. There are 82 towers on the outer walls and 19 on the Inner Castle.

According to the same source, the height of the towers and walls varies between about 8 and 22 metres, and their thickness between 1.40 and 5 metres. The thickest towers are on the north and west sides. The walls have four main gates; Dağ Kapı opens to the north, Urfa Kapı to the west, Mardin Kapı to the south and Yeni Kapı to the east. Dağtekin writes that the fact that almost all of the walls are built of basalt was emphasised as a decisive feature in the UNESCO World Heritage process. According to the Diyarbakır Governorship's page, the Diyarbakır Walls and the Hevsel Gardens were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015.

How the stone was laid

Basalt is a very hard stone and difficult to work. Dağtekin's study writes that the historic buildings inside the walls were built in masonry technique from foundation to roof, and that, depending on how they were dressed, stones were laid in staggered courses as finely dressed, roughly dressed, coursed and uncoursed rubble. The stones were often flattened on their faces and set so tightly that no mortar shows between them.

One of the structures that shows this workmanship most clearly is the Tigris Bridge. According to the Culture Portal, the bridge, also known as the Ten-Arched Bridge, is about 180 metres long and 7 to 8 metres wide. Rubble set in lime mortar was used as fill, while the facing consists of partly reused cut basalt stones laid in a staggered technique. According to the inscription on its south face, the bridge was built in 1064-65 in the Marwanid period, but researchers believe the inscription records a repair and that the structure is older. Looking at the bridge piers, you can see how stones of different sizes lock into one another.

Black and white

Diyarbakır's stone fabric is not only black. According to Dağtekin, in the later buildings of the city basalt was used together with limestone to create alternating, that is, banded black and white facades. The study counts the Deliller Inn and the Hasan Paşa Inn among these buildings. Payaslı Oğuz and Halifeoğlu also write that in houses basalt was laid in alternating courses with limestone for aesthetic effect.

According to the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the Hasan Paşa Inn stands east of the Great Mosque and was built in 1573 by Vezirzade Hasan Paşa. The inn has a courtyard and two storeys, and in the middle of the courtyard there is a columned, domed fountain. The same page states that the Deliller Inn was built by Hüsrev Paşa in 1527 near Mardin Kapı. Entering the courtyards of these two inns and looking at the bands of stone in the arches is the best way to understand the effect of the black and white masonry.

Cas, the ornament of the stone

Because the hardness of basalt makes carved decoration difficult, Diyarbakır's craftsmen added richness to facades in another way. According to the study by Payaslı Oğuz and Halifeoğlu, the wall masonry uses a lime-based mortar mixed with basalt dust, brick fragments, straw and salt. To create a jointing effect, a mortar called cas, prepared by adding egg white to lime cream, is applied. Decorations made with cas enriched the courtyard facades.

The inventory record on the Culture Portal writes that there are cas decorations on all the outer walls of the Cemil Paşa Mansion, with tree of life and tulip motifs in places. The light patterns on the dark stone suddenly lighten the weight of the basalt. If you stand in a courtyard and look closely at the walls, you can see how these patterns frame the stone joints.

The courtyard house and everyday basalt

Basalt is the stone not only of monuments but of houses too. Payaslı Oğuz and Halifeoğlu give the number of traditional houses registered by the Diyarbakır Regional Board for the Conservation of Cultural Property as 446. These houses are closed to the outside and turned inward. Rooms, an iwan, a kitchen and a pantry are arranged around a rectangular courtyard; the courtyard floor is usually paved with porous basalt and there is often a pool in the middle.

According to the same study, the spaces around the courtyard were arranged by season. Because of the hot summers, the rooms in the northern summer wing have high ceilings and many windows; with its tall iwans, this wing forms the richest facade of the house. The main load-bearing walls are built of basalt, and the roof is completed with an earth layer spread over poplar beams. The basements of some houses also contain pool rooms called serdap, arranged for the summer.

Today you can see this arrangement best at the Cemil Paşa Mansion. According to the inventory record on the Culture Portal, the mansion was built in 1887 of cut basalt. A study published in the Electronic Journal of Social Sciences in 2022 writes that the mansion has 42 rooms in its harem and selamlık sections, two separate courtyards, and that it is the only Diyarbakır mansion in which the harem and selamlık sections have survived complete. The mansion is used today as a city museum; check visiting conditions with official sources.

Figures in stone

Despite the hardness of basalt, stone figures are also found on houses. A study published in the Bitlis Eren University Journal of Social Sciences found stone figures on 14 of the 443 houses examined in the city. These figures include human heads, bull and wolf heads, and lions shown walking. At the end of the inscription on the south face of the Tigris Bridge there is also a lion relief with its head carved facing forward. As you walk, do not forget to look above doorways and at corner stones.

A walk for reading the stone

Half a day is a good start for seeing the basalt city. Begin at the foot of the walls around Dağ Kapı or Mardin Kapı and look at the towers with walls of different thickness. Then go inside the walls and study the black and white masonry in the courtyard of the Hasan Paşa Inn. At the Cemil Paşa Mansion, see the courtyard plan, the cas decorations and the porous paving stones. End the day by leaving through Mardin Kapı and walking down to the Tigris Bridge; in the evening light the colour of the basalt looks warmer. The stones get very hot at midday in summer, so in the hot months choose the morning and late afternoon. Remember to check the opening days and hours of museums and mansions on their official websites.

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