Mardin

The province

Get to know Mardin

Mardin sits on the edge of the Tur Abdin plateau, facing the plain that stretches toward Syria. The old town terraces down the hillside in bands of pale limestone houses, with mosques, madrasas and churches among narrow streets and stairways.

A few kilometres east, the Deyrulzafaran monastery (Mor Hananyo), founded in 493, was the seat of the Syriac Orthodox patriarchate from 1160 to 1932. In Midyat, about an hour’s drive away, there is another cluster of finely worked stone houses, and nearby the Mor Gabriel monastery, founded in 397, is one of the oldest still active.

In the town, the 15th‑century Kasımiye Medresesi and the Zinciriye Medresesi have courtyards with views over the plain. To the southeast, Dara preserves cisterns, a necropolis and walls of a Roman and Byzantine frontier town.

The cuisine blends Arab, Syriac, Kurdish and Turkish traditions: kaburga dolması (stuffed rib), stuffed rib, sembusek (thin meat‑filled pastry), and ikbebet, a wheat dumpling filled with meat. In Midyat, silversmiths keep the filigree silver (telkari) craft alive.