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Diyarbakir, Türkiye
Located on an escarpment of the Upper Tigris River Basin that is part of the so-called Fertile Crescent, the fortified city of Diyarbakır and the landscape around has been an important centre since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present. The site encompasses the Inner castle, known as İçkale and including the Amida Mound, and the 5.8 km-long city walls of Diyarbakır with their numerous towers, gates, buttresses, and 63 inscriptions. The site also includes the Hevsel Gardens, a green link between the city and the Tigris that supplied the city with food and water, the Anzele water source and the Ten-Eyed Bridge.
The Hevsel Gardens, are the seven hundred hectares of cultivated, fertile lands near the Tigris in eastern Turkey, between the Diyarbakır Fortress and the river. The fortified city was enclosed by a two-part system of defensive walls, and the gardens, fed by springs on the steep slope below, played a vital role in keeping the city provisioned and watered. The gardens were added to the UNESCO tentative list in 2013, and they became a World Heritage Site in 2015, along with the walls of Diyarbakır Fortress.
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