Diyarbakir (Suriçi): A Cultural Heritage with Its Color Faded in the Urban and Collective Memory in the Edge of Insolent Time(s)

Abstract

Having come into existence over the ongoing values of the Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Islam civilizations, the historical urban settlement tissue (Suriçi) of Diyarbakır (mosques, churches, hammams, monumental structures, city walls and traditional houses, etc.) represents one aspect of consensuses having made its presence felt in social and cultural structure to date by having been affected by the values of different cultures having existed historically. Cultural and spatial relations having come into existence in the plane of the time give opportunities for representation of an environment sustained and shared by a common togetherness. “Cultural and architectural heritage” featuring the emphasis of structure over social and spatial morphology of historical cities host the physical tissue of settlements taking shape together with cultural pluralism and tissue pattern created in the edge of social layers. In this context, the physical awareness of historical and spatial urban settlement patterns of Diyarbakır embodied in the claim of becoming a world heritage has ensured it to be included in UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List by being accepted with the definition “Diyarbakır Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Heritage Landscape” in 2015. This study has focused on the determination of how and with which outcomes the cultural and architectural heritage patterns providing the memory representation of the city faced together with the spiral of violence coming into existence in the environment of ongoing migration having bunched in the historical Suriçi region of Diyarbakır and near the walls of the city and the situation having resulted from violence/conflicted environment coming into existence in the last months of 2015. In its focal point, this study brings forward again how crucial cultural location patterns discussed on conflicted environment(s) and forming a historical memory system are. And this will ensure that Diyarbakır Suriçi being of international importance is brought forward again for universal values disappearing or crumpled in the spiral of violence to be able to be continued with the hope that it will contribute to “restructuring” and “reconstruction” processes that are highly likely to be appear in ordinary periods or situations.