Dara
Byzantine Frontier Fortress City Founded About 505 AD By Anastasius I Against Sassanid Persia; On The UNESCO Tentative List, With A Modern Village Living Among The Ruins · Mardin, Mardin
In about 505 the emperor Anastasius decided that Rome needed a fortress on the Persian frontier and built a whole city here in a hurry, twenty kilometres from the border and thirty from what is now Mardin. Dara held the eastern front for a century and a half, was taken and retaken, and then the frontier moved and it was left to a village that still lives among the ruins - houses and sheep pens built against Byzantine walls, children playing in a Roman street. Two things make it worth the drive. The first is the cistern: a vaulted underground hall on rows of piers, cut into the rock, the size of a decent church, built to keep a garrison alive through a siege. The second is the necropolis, an open field of rock-cut tombs and chambers with a carved relief of the resurrection on one wall. Excavation is ongoing and almost nobody comes - on a weekday you may have a sixth-century frontier city entirely to yourself.
Oguz Koyu, Dara Antik Kenti, Artuklu, Mardin, Mardin, Turkiye
Open daily with longer summer hours and an earlier winter close; parts of the site are open village ground and can be walked at any time. Excavation is active and closes sections without notice. The cistern is unlit in places. Mardin province was affected by the February 2023 earthquakes - check conditions before travelling.