Mardin

The city of Mardin is sited on a large hill that reaches almost 1200 m above sea level (about 600 m from base to peak). The city is spread over the sloping south side of the hill.1 The citadel on the summit, elevated about 100 meters over the upper reaches of the town, is accessible only by a steep footpath. The architecture of the citadel fortress dates primarily from the 10^th century on, though traces of apparently earlier phases have also been identified.

The old city was once surrounded by a stone wall, now largely destroyed. The buildings have been terraced over the slope, with their flat roofs often set at the same level as the terraces above them; the living quarters of the houses consistently face south, with a view over the plain. The main avenue, now called the 1. Cadde, begins at the city’s northwestern gate, the Diyarbakırkapi, and runs east; many of Mardin’s oldest monuments and the traditional commercial center are clustered along this avenue. East of the city center, 1. Cadde turns southeast toward the Savurkapi (east gate). The road that runs northeast from this point, Hükümet Caddesi (Government Street), was built up as an administrative center in the late 19^th century (see further below). Narrow, curving streets, many with archways (abbaras) and some ending in cul-de-sacs, characterize the urban street network more generally.

Mardin is replete with historical buildings and monuments, including—among others—mosques, madrassas, churches, caravanserais, and hammams. Most of these buildings have been created from the region’s distinctive limestone, ranging in color from pink to yellow to creamy white, known as Mardin-Taş (note the difference from the traditional dark basalt used at nearby Diyarbakır). Selected buildings, photographed by MMM during the team’s visit to the city in 2015, are described here. 

One of Mardin’s most important monuments is the Great Mosque (Ulu Cami) near the city center. An inscription found on its east façade (relating to a taxation decree) is dated to 1186 AD, providing a terminus ante quem for its initial construction. It may have been built at the same time as the iconic minaret at the building’s northeast. This minaret bears an inscription dating it to 1176, during the Artuqid era.2 It is constructed of ashlars cut from the local limestone, here of a rosy color. Its base is rectangular and features rectangles with Kufic compositions on each side. Above the base and below the balcony, the circular shaft is divided into three sections by ornamental bands. Teardrop-shaped and round medallions, also with Kufic compositions, are set within the blind niches of the lower two bands. Above the small muqurnas balcony, the shaft is adorned with a blind arcade and topped with a ribbed dome.

The later 19^th century saw extensive additions to the city’s architectural fabric. These new constructions were generally built using in the usual local limestone and traditional stonemasonry techniques, though varying in style in accordance with their function. In the 1870s–1890s, the local Ottoman administration cleared a large section of the city’s northeast (the Şehidiye Quarter) to make way for a new bureaucratic-municipal complex centered on Hükümet Caddesi (see, for instance, the Old Government House).3 The government further sponsored a number of municipal monuments at this time, including a police station, prison, barracks, and school. These are built primarily in a late Ottoman, neoclassicizing style, which can be broadly linked to the Tanzimat reforms (see further in “History”).

During the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, several mansions (konaks) were built in Mardin. One of these residences is the Şahtana House, which was reportedly built in 1890–1891 under the direction of the architect Serkis Elyas Lole.4 It is the largest and most luxurious of Mardin’s mansions, built in a light pinkish-yellow variety of the local limestone. It is fronted by an enclosure wall, to the south, with a portal leading into a central courtyard. This courtyard is surrounded by an east, west, and north wing, all of them two stories high; a one-story arcade fronts each wing. A grand staircase leads up to the terrace lying above the arcade, with a view over the lower city and southern plain (see the panorama). Surrounding the terrace, each of the building’s wings is centered on an iwan leading to the residential areas (see the panorama). The facades are decorated with blind arches and elegantly detailed moldings and medallions. The house was serving as a hotel by the 1930s and was later converted into a post office. Today, parts of the building have been opened to the public and a café has been brought in. 

The nearby Şehidiye Mosque/Madrassa dates to the Artuqid period but has been renovated and expanded many times.5 Its current minaret was designed by Serkis Lole and constructed in 1916–1917. The minaret emerges from the roof of the southwestern corner of the complex, at the junction between the west wing and the mosque building. Its rectangular base is surrounded by a colonnade with rounded pinnacles at the corners. The circular shaft is ornamented with thin engaged colonnettes and several decorative bands and moldings. The lower, circular balcony is detailed with slender conical brackets, while the upper, polygonal balcony features more elaborate sunburst and vegetal reliefs. The undulating toruses of the spire converge into a peak crowned with a crescent finial (alem).

Mardin has long extended beyond the walls of the old city and into areas of the surrounding slopes and plain. Notably, several historical country houses were built on the outskirts of the city, including Firdevs Kasrı/Qasr al Firdaws. In the modern period, urban sprawl has extended particularly in the north/northwesterly direction.

• 1. See the drawings in Gabriel 1940, figs. 2 and 3.
• 2. Note that the upper part of the minaret was rebuilt in the 19th century due to damage.
• 3. See Açıkyıldız-Şengül 2018, fig. 4, for a diagram of this area.
• 4. Gabriel 1940, 41-43 and fig. 33; on the attribution to Lole, see the critical discussion in Açıkyıldız-Şengül 2018b, 65-66.
• 5. See the plan and discussion in Gabriel 1940, 27–28 fig. 19. As Gabriel notes, the 14th-century historian Katip Ferdi attributes the construction to under Malik Mansur Nasreddin Artuk Arslan [al-Malik al-Manṣūr Nasr ad-Dīn] (r. 1203–1239 AD).