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brooklynite

(93,851 posts)
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 11:39 AM Sep 2019

'They are barbaric': Turkey prepares to flood 12,000-year-old city to build dam

Source: The Guardian

After the half-hour drive from Batman in south-east Turkey, the ancient city of Hasankeyf, which sits on the banks of the Tigris River, appears as an oasis.

Hasankeyf is thought to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements on Earth, dating as far back as 12,000 years and containing thousands of caves, churches and tombs.

But this jewel of human history will soon be lost; most of the settlement is about to be flooded as part of the highly controversial Ilisu dam project.

Construction work on the dam and its hydroelectric power plant started in 2006 and Hasankeyf is now just weeks away from destruction, despite a fight by residents and environmental campaigners to save it. The Turkish government has given residents until 8 October to evacuate.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/sep/12/they-are-barbaric-turkey-prepares-to-flood-12000-year-old-city-to-build-dam

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democratisphere

(17,235 posts)
2. This is the kind of thing that happens when brain dead people are elected
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 11:52 AM
Sep 2019

to government. Further, history does nor seem to matter to younger generations today, I see it all the time.

eissa

(4,238 posts)
8. Mine too! (Assyrian)
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 02:18 PM
Sep 2019

And this doesn't surprise me given Turkey's atrocious history with its minority population, and any archaeological site that pre-dates its Ottoman takeover.

SharonAnn

(13,766 posts)
5. I remember this kind of thing happening when the Aswan Dam in Egypt was built.
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 01:14 PM
Sep 2019

I was just a child, but it was horrifying. At least there was an urgency to save some of the cultural artifacts from the area. And those artifacts were HUGE.

The_jackalope

(1,660 posts)
9. Humanity prepares to flood all the world's coastal cities
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 02:19 PM
Sep 2019

In order to keep driving to work.

I don't see much difference.

FiveGoodMen

(20,018 posts)
14. But when you've seen one modern city, you've seen them all...
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 05:08 PM
Sep 2019

12000 year old ones are pretty hard to find

Thunderbeast

(3,382 posts)
10. Celilo was the longest-inhabited settlement in North America
Thu Sep 12, 2019, 02:20 PM
Sep 2019

People from Alaska, Mexico, and the Great Plains gathered there for centuries to trade. It is estimated that indigenous cultures have been there for 10,000 years.

It was flooded in 1957 by The Dalles Dam. The tribes and the salmon have never recovered.

The Turks do not have a monopoly on "barbarism"

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