What you will see

The stark 6km black basalt wall encircling the city is an embellishment of the Roman original and has four main gates and around 70 towers. A walkway gives excellent views over the Tigris. The old town’s buildings, with some 20 mosques, have a distinctive black-and-white design using basalt and limestone blocks. The 12th-century Great Mosque, which can accommodate 5,000, is one of the oldest Seljuk complexes, probably built on the site of an earlier Christian church. The existing Syriac Orthodox church dates from the 3rd century. The Armenian church of St Giragos has been recently restored. Artefacts from Turcoman tribesman can be seen in the archeology museum.

In the region is Ziyaret Tepe, an archaeological site of great interest where excavations began in 2000, and described in Cornucopia 57. Ziyaret Tepe:Exploring the Anatolian frontier of the Assyrian Empire ≤/i> published by Cornucopia Cornucopia is a ground-breaking book, which won the prestigious Felicia A.Horton 2019 Book of the Year Award, given by the American Institute of Archaeology AIA) and America’s Society for Classical Studies.