The water system at the upper city of Hasankeyf and its impact on urban settlement

Date

2007

Author

Oğuz, Eser Deniz

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Hasankeyf, located in Upper Mesopotamia, southeastern Turkey with its environs at the floodplains of Tigris, welcomed many cultures in different periods. It has a very unique status with its difficult topography and distinctive outlook where spatial urbanization in almost every period must have been extraordinary, as well. The aim of this thesis is to study the water distribution system, specifically its relation to natural and man-made environment, at the Upper city of Hasankeyf, in order to identify the impact of utilization of water on the urban structure, with a new perspective. The thesis tries to explain the designation of urban patterns and understand possible late settlement strategies in the light of cistern-incentive and available canal data collected at the Upper city. The identification of 185 cisterns and their various characteristics helps to make different analyses to establish links between the water system and settlement areas at macro and micro levels, which go hand in hand with mapping studies. Notwithstanding the abovementioned objectives, this study endeavors to find some common denominators with Roman water practices, which are considered to be comparable to those of Hasankeyf, thus unveil some clues for Hasankeyf water features. It now appears that water and urban settlement are two sides of a coin where water can not be treated as the sole determinant on the development of settlement patterns in which case the urban settlement also has impact on the water distribution at the Upper city.

Subject Keywords

Archaeology.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12608126/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/16613

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis