The border with Syria is only forty kilometers from Gaziantep. Already since Marash many stores are labeled in Arabic and we hear besides Turkish now also more and more Arabic and Kurdish snippets of conversation. We are now back at a moderate 500 meters altitude and the temperatures are accordingly warmer. Our plan seems to work! Suddenly the trees carry yellow autumn leaves again and the season seems to be turned back a bit. We are in Pistache country. “Antep Fistik” is the Turkish term for it. Antep is the short form of Gaziantep and really – the hills and fields here are planted with single olive trees and small trees. We spend another day on the wide breakdown lane of the highway and towards evening we reach the legendary river Euphrates. We are now at the border of Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The fertile area of Mesopotamia stretches from the Levant on the Mediterranean Sea to today’s Syria and Iraq. Here, more than 10,000 years ago, the first people settled down and new cultural techniques and social forms developed.
We are heading for a green spot next to the town when a car stops next to us and the window is rolled down. Gesticulating wildly with a few words of English, Siat tells us that our search is over immediately and that we will spend the night with him and his baby. Reasoning impossible. So we follow the car through the streets of the settlement, register that Siat is obviously known in the neighborhood and soon we are sitting in a huge room with huge sofas and not only a baby but a big family with five children! The parents Siat and Ahi came here with the oldest children Muhammed and Mustafa eight years ago from Aleppo in Syria. Ahmed, Aya and Mahmut were born in exile. On the TV, a man dressed as a bush scares passersby, while five-year-old Mahmut keeps his siblings and parents on their toes. When asked my age, I usually answer with a faked “30.” Ahi, the mother, reveals her age: 34! I can hardly believe it. Ahi is younger than me and has already brought five children into the world, escaped a war and is organizing her extended family here. Soon it is time for dinner and the children are busy helping to put the food on the table. A large tablecloth is spread out on the floor and countless bowls and dishes are placed on it. Siat hands us pita bread and we dive into the flavors of Syria. What a meal! Fried fish, grilled peppers, chicken and potato soup, salad, fresh mint, lemon and chili. After dinner we all sit together in the big parlor. The lively bush on the TV continues to bounce passersby and we chat with the parents with the help of the children, who can all read and write Turkish. At some point more relatives come by with guitar- Louie should please play something- I am wrapped in a golden festive robe and to the Kurdish party music the upper bodies are shaken. By the way, Siat discovers the holes in Louie’s socks; tells a son to bring new ones, persuades Louie to put them on, grabs the broken ones and stuffs them into the oven. No rejoinder allowed and we laugh tears at the scene.
Despite all the hustle and bustle, the evening is surprisingly relaxed for us and the obligatory morning meal the next day once again dashes all hopes: In addition to the classic ingredients such as yogurt, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese, a homemade chutney, olive oil spice dip and spiced coffee join the fabulous buffet here. The family raved to us about halfati the night before. Halfati? Never heard of it. A quick consultation of the internet convinces us to take a swing. We spontaneously change our plans and instead of continuing on the direct way to Urfa, we branch off the main road on the other side of the Euphrates the next morning and follow the river south through the endless pistachio plantations.
At Halfeti, the Euphrates has carved a deep valley and the steep cliffs form an imposing backdrop. For the huge Southeast Anatolia Project (GAP), the Euphrates and Tigris rivers were dammed at countless dams starting in 1999.
Many valleys and villages were flooded in the process and rebuilt a few kilometers away from the old site. So now there is a new Halfeti in the middle of pistachio trees on top of the plain and an original Halfeti directly at the water, which attracts as a tourist magnet mainly domestic tourists. We like it so much that we immediately spend a whole day and another night in this special place.
After another day’s drive through the pistachio trees and another night at the Euphrates we finally reach the legendary Sanliurfa. The ancient city is already mentioned in the Old Testament as “Ur”, is the birthplace of Abraham and an important junction on the Silk Road. We find a nice accommodation with courtyard and caravanserai character in the winding old town. As always, we just let ourselves drift through the alleys and see what we come across. When we turn off into a busy market street, we can hardly get enough of all the new impressions. Merchants offer bright, glittering cloth, white-bearded men sit in front of piles of tobacco, small, sturdy horses pull carts with piles of vegetables through the alleys. We stand and marvel at the men’s plaid headscarves and oversized shepherd coats, the confident women with fiery eyes and velvet capes. Brass-trimmed fabrics and shiny belts flash out from under wide dresses, the guttural sounds of Arabic fill the air, flocks of pigeons circle above the houses, there is a smell of food and a sound of the market, and we are soon in conversation with a young shoe salesman who explains that although the people here are all Turks, they are Arab Turks. They have retained their original culture and language and dominate the Urfa cityscape.
We let ourselves be flushed through the busy alleys and stand at some point in front of the Balikligöl. Here, according to Islamic tales, Abraham was once thrown into a fire but saved by God. The charcoal from the fire turned into the numerous black carp that visitors love to feed.
Abraham’s birth cave is right next door and is also an important pilgrimage site for Muslims, who revere Abraham as one of many prophets and forefathers.
Urfa is an impressive city. The many horse-drawn carts, the oriental style of dress, the displays of goods in the stores and the ancient architecture of the city center immerse us in an ancient human world. A few kilometers from the city, the prehistoric site of Göbekli Tepe has been uncovered since the 1990s. We read about this site some time ago in Yuval Noah Harari`s book “A Brief History of Mankind”, but only now we realize that this particular site is only a stone`s throw away from us. So towards evening we tramp out of town to the hill of Göbekli Tepe and camp next to between a power line and a radio antenna to see this Stone Age mountain sanctuary the next day. In the pompous visitor center, the site is immodestly presented as “point zero in human history” and various guesses are made as to the original significance of the site. The size and nature of the structures suggest a complex group organization, and the imagery on the circularly arranged stone pillars suggest a spiritual background. In his book, Harari expresses the conjecture that “the site at Göbekli Tepe must have had something to do with the domestication of wheat and man. To feed the people who built such monumental structures, enormous amounts of food were needed. It is quite conceivable that the hunter-gatherers did not switch from gathering wheat to growing wheat to meet their usual caloric needs, but to build a temple. If this is true, then religious beliefs may have caused people to pay the high price that wheat demanded.”
The visit prompts us to a long conversation about fate or destiny, the importance and impact of religion and the seeming inevitability of events on a global and immediate level.
We continue our journey through this significant area of the world, where the sedentariness of man and agriculture began 12,000 years ago. The wheat domesticated man and forced him to domesticity and not vice versa, says Harari. For hours we drive between stone-strewn fields, observe the farmers who for generations have been clearing the stones from the fields, laying out and collecting irrigation pipes, driving tractors, distributing fertilizer, spraying poison, sowing, tending, harvesting and thereby creating large families that can hardly be fed – there is something to this thesis. Our own diet is also very wheat-heavy, as is typical of our time. Pasta, bulgur, bread and oatmeal are daily staples. It is amazing that mankind got used to all these foods only 10,000 years ago!