Hasankeyf Museum and Archaeological Site

Hasankeyf is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on the Tigris, and its museum tells the story of the wider valley. Most of the displays come from rescue excavations carried out in the provinces of Batman, Diyarbakır, Siirt and Mardin ahead of the Ilısu Dam and hydroelectric project, together with pieces acquired or donated to neighbouring museums.

The collection is arranged by period, and it spans an unusually long stretch of time, from the Palaeolithic to the early Ottoman centuries. Early rooms show obsidian and flint tools gathered on surveys along the Tigris and on Mount Raman, followed by stone and bone objects from Neolithic mounds such as Hasankeyf Höyük, Hallan Çemi and Körtiktepe.

Later cases move through the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age, with pottery and metal finds from Başur Höyük and Gre Amer, then Assyrian, Iron Age, Persian and Hellenistic material from mounds around the upper Tigris. The overall effect is a compact lesson in how many cultures passed through this crossing.

The museum works best as an introduction before you see the historic site itself, where medieval remains still overlook the river valley.