Amida Mound, located in İçkale in the city center of Diyarbakır, is where the first settlement in the center of Diyarbakır began. The mound is approximately 663.00 meters above sea level, 20 meters above the ground. Diyarbakır Archaeology Museum Directorate and Prof. Dr. İrfan Yıldız found the first settlement in Amida Mound 8 thousand years ago. It was determined that it started in 6100 BC (Late Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic Period) and continued uninterruptedly until today.

The name of the city was first mentioned in written sources during the Assyrian period. In Assyrian documents, the name of the city is mentioned as Amidi, Amēdi, Amidu, Amida. The name of the city was written as Amidi or Amida on the sword hilt of the Middle Assyrian King Adad Nirari I (1307-1275 BC), who attacked the Diyarbakır region in the last years of his reign. In the Roman period, the name of the city is mentioned as "Amida Colony of the Mesopotamian Metropolis".

Amida Mound, the administrative center of the Diyarbakır region, is the only example in the world that has been an uninterrupted administrative center for 8 thousand years. Located in the heart of Diyarbakır, Amida Mound is also important for hosting the Artuqid Palace, where the first robots in the world were made and provided service.

*Transferred from the information board at the Amida Mound excavation site.

Although local hand-made vessels, wheel-made Ubaid vessels and beveled Uruk bowls coexist in most contemporary sites in northern Mesopotamia, the presence of only local vessels at Amida Mound indicates that the site was inhabited by local communities. A group of vessel sherds with burnished slip residues indicate that the mound was inhabited during the transitional period from the Late Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age.

As in most settlements in the Upper Tigris basin, no ceramic sherds dating to the first half of the third millennium BC have been found here. The mound appears to have been re-occupied from the mid-third millennium BC onwards. A small number of fine-clay wheel-made and high-heat fired vessels represent a slipped and burnished group of the Standard Pottery of Northern Mesopotamia. A sherd found among the surface finds belongs to the part where the foot and bowl sections of high-footed bowls from the Middle Euphrates basin are joined to the Early Bronze Age III. A sherd belonging to Early Transcaucasian III pottery adds to the evidence for the presence of this ceramic group in the Upper Tigris basin. The earliest written document found in the Upper Tigris basin is a stele erected by the Akkadian King Naramsin for Pir Hüseyin after he conquered the region in the 3rd century BC. Akkadian rule in the region continued for about a century, and the last two centuries of the third millennium BC are dated to the post-Akkadian period. On the other hand, no pieces of the Metallic Ceramics and Dark-rimmed Orange Bowls characteristic of the period were found at Amida Mound, so no evidence was found indicating that the mound was inhabited during this period.

In the Upper Tigris basin, the Middle Bronze Age is defined by the Standard Red-Brown Paint Slip Ware and the Habur Painted Ware. The presence of sherds belonging to these ceramic groups at Amida Mound indicates that it was inhabited, as in most settlements in the Upper Tigris basin. Sherds belonging to standard monochrome wares with smoothed surfaces and fine-paste beige slip wares, as well as a body fragment probably belonging to the Nuzi Painted Ware, indicate that the mound was also in use during the Mitanni period. According to Middle Assyrian written documents, Amid or Amedi was the capital of an Aramaic tribe called Bit-Zamani. Although it is known that the city came under the rule of the Middle Assyrian kingdom in 1260-1190 BC, no sherds dated to the Middle Assyrian period were found among the surface material of the mound. It is likely that the Middle Assyrian settlement was shifted to another part of the city.

In the period between the withdrawal of the Middle Assyrian kingdom from the region and the reconquest of the Neo-Assyrian kings in the 9th century BC, pit houses and seasonal settlements containing handmade vessels of Eastern Anatolian origin were unearthed in many settlements in the Upper Tigris basin. The absence of any fragments of these vessels among the surface material of Amida Mound suggests that the Bit-Zamani kingdom may have kept these nomadic tribes away from the city.

The Upper Tigris basin became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the 9th century BC onwards. The medium and coarse quality vessel fragments found on the surface of the mound provide archaeological evidence for the information in historical documents that Amidi was a fortified city of the vassal kingdom and later the center of the Bit-Zamani province. Although a letter written by the governor of the province to Sargon II mentions a royal palace with a depiction of the king, the absence of any vessel fragments belonging to Neo-Assyrian Palace Pottery at Amida Mound suggests that the mound may have been used only for military purposes during this period. After 612 BC, Northern Mesopotamia became part of the Late Babylonian Empire and from 550 BC, it became part of the Persian Empire. However, no characteristic vessel shapes belonging to these periods have been found. Neo-Assyrian standard pottery appears to have been used in the Late Babylonian and Persian periods as well. According to historical documents, although the city was conquered by Alexander the Great and later by the Armenian, Roman and Parthian kingdoms, no characteristic pieces that could be dated to these periods were found among the surface material of the mound.

The city's Middle, Modern and Modern history is better documented. The city changed hands frequently between Roman and Sassanid kings; in 330-349 AD, Emperor Constantine had Amida, where the eastern border of the Roman Empire passed, surrounded by walls. The fragments of dark green glazed coarse vessels and plain-surfaced everyday vessels dating to the Late Antique and Byzantine periods found in the mound were also produced by local potters in the region in later periods.

After the city was conquered by Arab armies in 639 AD, the Islamic period began. The city, which was ruled by the Artuqids during the Seljuk, Ayyubid and Mongol periods, was called Kara Amid. The palace of the Artuqids was built on the mound, probably because it was the highest point in the city. After the Mongols withdrew in 1335 AD, the city became the scene of battles between the Akkoyunlu and Karakoyunlu Turkmens. Sherds of plain-surfaced, red-lined, molded barbotine decoration and green-glazed vessels dating from the 11th to 14th centuries AD appear to have been produced and used during these periods. The city was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and became the capital of the Diyar-ı Bekr province. Sherds of blue-white and multicolored glazed vessels and terracotta pipe fragments found among the surface material collected from the mound date back to the 16th to 18th centuries. Official and military buildings were built on the skirts of the mound during the Ottoman period.

A. Tuba Ökse – The Oldest Settlement of Diyarbakır City: Amida Mound in İçkale

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