Hasankeyf (Heskîf): The Drowned City on the Tigris
- Dala Sarkis
- 4 hours ago
- 7 min read
Introduction
Hasankeyf, known to Kurds as Heskîf and to the medieval world as Hisn Kayfa, was one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on earth — a town of cliff-carved caves, a great medieval bridge and a towering citadel on the banks of the Tigris in what is now Batman Province. For thousands of years it guarded a vital crossing of the river. In 2020 most of it disappeared beneath the reservoir of the Ilısu Dam.
This is the second entry in our geographic series on Greater Kurdistan, and one of its most painful. Hasankeyf matters to Kurdish history both for what it was — the last refuge of the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty — and for what its drowning came to symbolise in the modern Kurdish southeast.
Quick Facts
Common Name: Hasankeyf
Kurdish Name: Heskîf
Historic Names: Hisn Kayfa (Arabic); Kepha / Kiphas / Cepha (Roman–Byzantine); Ḥesno d-Kifo (Syriac); Harsnkv (Armenian)
Meaning: Roughly “fortress of the rock”
Region: Bakur (Northern Kurdistan)
Province: Batman Province, Turkey
River: The Tigris
Age of Settlement: Often described as up to 12,000 years; home to more than 20 cultures
Status Today: Largely submerged since 2020 by the Ilısu Dam reservoir; residents moved to New Hasankeyf
Known For: Ancient caves, the Old Tigris Bridge, the rock citadel, the last Ayyubid dynasty, and its flooding
Contents
Origins and the Ancient Caves
Hasankeyf is frequently described as up to twelve thousand years old, and while exact dating is difficult, there is no doubt it is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world. Its earliest inhabitants carved homes directly into the soft limestone cliffs above the Tigris, and people were still living in some of those caves in modern times. Over its long history the site is said to have been home to more than twenty distinct cultures.
Its position explains its endurance. Hasankeyf sat at a natural crossing of the Tigris on the route between Diyarbakir (ancient Amida) and the Jazira to the south, and on the trade roads linking Lake Van to the Euphrates. Whoever held the rock held the river.
Roman and Byzantine Kepha
In Roman times the site was known as Kepha or Kiphas and served as a fortified base for legionaries on the frontier with Sasanian Persia; a fortified city is generally dated to around the 4th century AD. Under the Byzantines it remained a strategic strongpoint and an episcopal see, one of the many fortress-towns that studded the contested Roman–Persian border. The Syriac name Ḥesno d-Kifo, meaning “fortress of rock,” preserves this ancient identity and is the root of the later Arabic Hisn Kayfa.
Hisn Kayfa: The Artuqid Golden Age
Arab armies took the town around 640, and it became Hisn Kayfa, an important regional capital by the early 10th century. Its greatest medieval flourishing came under the Artuqids, a Turkmen dynasty who made Hisn Kayfa the capital of their south-eastern emirate from around 1102. Controlling the Tigris crossing on the Diyarbakir–Mosul road, the Artuqids grew wealthy on trade and turned the town into a staging post on the Silk Road.
Their most famous monument was the Old Tigris Bridge, built in the mid-12th century (roughly between 1147 and 1167). In its day its central arch was among the largest in the world, if not the largest. The bridge eventually collapsed, probably in the 17th century, but its massive stone piers still rose from the river until modern times — the enduring image of Hasankeyf.
The Last Ayyubids: A Kurdish Dynasty’s Final Refuge
In 1232 the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil Muhammad — a nephew of Saladin — took Hisn Kayfa from the Artuqids and brought it into the Ayyubid empire. What followed is one of the most remarkable footnotes in Kurdish history. The Ayyubids were a Kurdish dynasty, and after the great Ayyubid sultanates of Egypt and Syria fell, the small branch ruling from Hasankeyf survived. This cadet line endured from 1232 until the early 16th century — commonly dated to around 1524 — making it the very last of all the Ayyubid dynasties to disappear, more than two and a half centuries after the others.
For nearly three hundred years, then, this rock on the Tigris was the final seat of the house Saladin founded. We cover that story in detail in our companion article on the Ayyubids of Hasankeyf.
Aq Qoyunlu, Zeynel Bey and the Ottomans
By the later 15th century the region passed to the Aq Qoyunlu, the “White Sheep” Turkmen confederation. From this period comes the Zeynel Bey Tomb, a striking cylindrical mausoleum decorated in turquoise and blue glazed tile, built around 1475 for Zeynel Bey, a son of the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan killed in battle. The Safavids briefly held the area before the Ottomans absorbed Hasankeyf in 1516, after which it gradually declined from a regional capital into a quiet provincial town.
The Monuments of Hasankeyf
Even in decline, Hasankeyf preserved an extraordinary density of heritage: the rock citadel honeycombed with thousands of man-made caves; the ruined piers and surviving arch of the Old Tigris Bridge; the El-Rizk Mosque of 1409, whose roughly 30-metre minaret was long the town’s tallest structure; the Artuqid Great Palace and Small Palace; and the jewel-like Zeynel Bey Tomb. Turkey declared the area a natural conservation zone in 1981, and in 2008 it was placed on the World Monuments Watch.
The Ilısu Dam and the Drowning of Hasankeyf
The Ilısu Dam was first proposed in 1954, but construction did not begin until 2006. The project drew sustained international opposition, and in the late 2000s foreign investors withdrew over heritage and human-rights concerns. Campaigners, organised as the Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive, fought the dam for years, and a case reached the European Court of Human Rights. Repeated efforts to win UNESCO World Heritage protection failed, in part because the Turkish state — the body that would have had to apply — declined to do so.
In the end the dam went ahead. A handful of monuments — around eight, including the 1,100-tonne Zeynel Bey Tomb (moved in 2017), parts of a Roman-era gate, an Artuqid bath and elements of the El-Rizk Mosque — were transported on giant wheeled platforms to a new “culture park” about two kilometres away, beside the purpose-built town of New Hasankeyf (Yeni Hasankeyf). The reservoir began filling in 2019, and by 1 April 2020 the water reached an elevation of about 498 metres, submerging the old town. Only the upper citadel still rises above the lake. Roughly 2,500 residents, and many more from surrounding villages, were resettled; campaigners and former residents described the loss as the erasure of a shared human heritage, not only a Kurdish one.
Timeline of Key Events
c. 10,000 BC — Caves carved into the limestone cliffs; among the world’s oldest settlements.
c. 4th century AD — Roman/Byzantine fortress of Kepha on the Persian frontier.
c. 640 — Arab conquest; the town becomes Hisn Kayfa.
c. 1102–1232 — Artuqid capital; golden age and the Old Tigris Bridge.
1232 — The Kurdish Ayyubids take Hisn Kayfa.
c. 1475 — Aq Qoyunlu Zeynel Bey Tomb built.
1516 — Ottoman conquest.
c. 1524 — The Hasankeyf Ayyubids fall — the last Ayyubid dynasty to disappear.
1981 — Declared a natural conservation area.
2006 — Ilısu Dam construction begins.
2017 — Zeynel Bey Tomb relocated to higher ground.
1 April 2020 — The reservoir submerges the old town of Hasankeyf.
Debates and Controversies
The defining controversy is the Ilısu Dam itself. Turkey presented it as vital for hydroelectric power and regional development; opponents argued it needlessly destroyed an irreplaceable archaeological landscape, displaced long-settled communities, and harmed downstream water flows into Iraq and Syria. A second, quieter point concerns identity. Hasankeyf was historically a predominantly Arab town, with significant Armenian and Assyrian Christian communities, while Kurds traditionally lived in the surrounding villages. After the Armenian and Assyrian genocides and decades of later migration, the town centre became Kurdish-majority, and it sits firmly within Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast. Its deepest Kurdish claim, however, is dynastic: it was the last capital of the Kurdish Ayyubids. Honest history holds these layers together rather than reducing the town to any single people.
Legacy and Significance
Hasankeyf has become a symbol — of extraordinary antiquity, of the cost of large infrastructure projects, and of the vulnerability of Kurdish and regional heritage to decisions made far away. Its monuments now stand, oddly displaced, in a roadside culture park, while the town that gave them meaning lies underwater. For many Kurds and for heritage advocates worldwide, Hasankeyf is remembered less as a place that was lost by accident than as one that was knowingly given up.
Related Places and Topics
The Ayyubids of Hasankeyf — the last Ayyubid dynasty. Batman — the modern provincial city. Cizre and the Emirate of Botan, downstream on the Tigris. Silvan (Mayyafariqin) and Diyarbakir (Amed), the great cities upstream. Saladin and the wider Ayyubid story. The Tigris River in Kurdish geography.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Hasankeyf?
Hasankeyf (Heskîf) lies on the Tigris River in Batman Province, in the Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey — the region Kurds call Bakur, or Northern Kurdistan.
Why was Hasankeyf flooded?
It was submerged by the reservoir of the Ilısu Dam, a large hydroelectric project. Despite years of local and international protest, the old town was flooded in 2020; residents were moved to the purpose-built New Hasankeyf nearby.
Why does Hasankeyf matter to Kurdish history?
It was the final capital of the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty, which survived there until the early 16th century — long after the Ayyubids had fallen in Egypt and Syria. Today it lies in the Kurdish-majority southeast and its loss became a powerful symbol of threatened heritage.
Is anything of Hasankeyf left?
Yes. The upper citadel still rises above the water, and around eight monuments — including the Zeynel Bey Tomb — were relocated to a culture park on higher ground before the flooding. Most of the old town, however, is underwater.
References and Further Reading
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