August 6, 2013, National Geographic Newswatch
Almost nowhere in the world is human history as densely layered as it is in Hasankeyf.
Strange sights greet its visitors: thousands of caves carved into limestone cliffs, children playing on the remains of a gargantuan medieval bridge, the towering minaret of a 15th-century mosque.
The first known inhabitants of this place on the banks of the Tigris River in Southeastern Turkey settled here in Neolithic times, 12,000 years ago.
Julia Harte 