|
Turkish Kurdistan is a treasure-trove of old historical sites tucked away in the lap of high and till recently inaccessible mountains.
The long convoy of army jeeps and tanks carrying grim-faced soldiers was a sign that we were now entering what is unofficially a virtual war-zone, the Kurdish eastern part of Turkey. The Kurds are a nation dispossessed of their territory, their homeland being divided between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, all of whom seem equally hostile to Kurdish demands for autonomy or independence. Kurds form around a fifth or more of Turkey’s population, and have for decades been at loggerheads within the government in Ankara. Stern laws have been imposed on the Kurds, and they have resorted to armed conflict to get their demands met. Till recently, it was a punishable offence in Turkey to even speak the Kurdish language, but now, with more flexible government policies and the discovery of oil in the region, things are beginning to change. Kurdish eastern Turkey, however, still remains distinctly poorer than the rest of the country.
Turkish Kurdistan is a treasure-trove of old historical sites tucked away in the lap of high and till recently inaccessible mountains. Coming up from the oil town of Gaziantep, the bus passed through barren countryside, dotted with little oases and dry grazing pastures. We stopped for lunch at the town of Dayarbakir, nestled on the banks of the Tigris river, with a history that dates back to 1500 BC. The town is the nerve-centre of Kurdish rebels. Approaching the town from the river below, we passed through a massive gate in a wall that encircles the town, several centuries old, the largest in the world after the Great Wall of China. With its old, crumbling Ottoman mansions and ancient mosques and madrasas and its inhabitants in traditional attire, this part of town stands in stark contrast to the new quarter, with its large gardens, public fountains, posh apartment blocks, mobile-phone-totting youth and women in the latest western fashions.
I hesitated to spend the night in Dayarbakir, apprehensive of the massive military presence in the town. So, I hopped on to an evening bus heading for the settlement of Nemrut Daghi, a seven-hour journey away. Nemrut is one of Turkey’s most famous archaeological sights, perched on the uninhabited slopes of the Taurus range. The next morning, as the sun rose from behind the mountains, we passed by little Kurdish villages with their flat, mud and stone houses. All along, the road followed the mighty Euphrates, with little streams trickling down the slopes hurriedly joining the surging river below. We crossed the river on a Roman bridge, built way back in the second century AD, but still in functional condition, and then began the steep climb to Nemrut Daghi.
The sun was beating mercilessly down on us as we stopped at a wayside stall for a cup of tea and biscuits, near a gigantic man-made pyramid of little chips of stone. Surrounded by four tall pillars and commanding a majestic view of the Euphrates and the barren cliffs below, this is a tomb of a long-forgotten king of the Commagne dynasty dating back to the first century CE. Driving further into the mountains, we halted at a Muslim shrine, said by locals to be the grave of an ancient prophet Ezra or Ozair, deeply revered by Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.
After lunch, we hitched a ride on a jeep, getting off at a crumbling castle perched precariously on a steep precipice. Just the walls of the castle remain today, but all around are ruins of a large and flourishing centre on the famed Silk Route connecting Europe with China. A long tunnel, some 250 metres deep, leads into an underground cavern, a funerary chamber, surrounded by massive statues of stern-looking patriarchs and kings distinctly Greek and Roman in appearance. A narrow path, winding through uninhabited stretches of barren rock, leads up from here to the summit of Nemrut Daghi mountain.
According to local legend, a megalomaniac king, Antiochus by name, knowing that his death was soon approaching, ordered the mountain of Nemrut Daghi to be split into two and to be filled with statues of himself and the gods he worshipped, a curious mixture of an assortment of birds and animals, and Zoroastrian, Roman and Greek deities, in the hope that this would secure him a place in the heavens. And so, an army of labourers was pressed into service in a gigantic operation. After his death he was buried in the space between the two ledges cut into the mountain, and a massive pile of stones, almost 70 metres high was built over his grave. Over time, the memory of this royal grave was lost, but early this century an earthquake caused the piles of stones to come crashing down and the mammoth statues, some over fifteen metres high, to come to the surface. Today they lie scattered on top of the mountain in eerie silence.
It took us two days to trek back to Kahta, the closest town. By this time, our feet were riddled with corns and blisters. The next three days were spent drinking in the sun, feasting on kababs, revelling in Kurdish hospitality, and recuperating till we were back on our feet and ready to head off to wherever we could hitch a ride.
(The writer can be reached at ysikand@gmail.com)
|
|
