Reading list | Diyarbakır

On the banks above the Tigris, Diyarbakır is a major Kurdish town known for its oversized melons - a fruit with a long history in Turkey, as Berrin Torolsan explained in Cornucopia 39. It was an important Hurrian city and the Romans, who built the impressive city walls, called it called Amida. Other peoples to rule the town include the Black Sheep (Kara Koyunlu) and White Sheep (Ak Koyunlu) Oghuz Turks, whose names seem reflected in the chequerboard architecture. Diyarbakır has an important military airport and nearby Pirinçlik is a Nato radar base.

Diyarbakir Archaeology Museum houses finds fro  Ziyaret Tepe, one of the last stronhgholds of the Assyrians, and the subject of Cornucopia's award-winning book Ziyaret Tepe: Exploring the Anatolian friontier of the Assyrian Empire.