Palu.

I returned to the portacabin to thank the workmen for their hospitality and sound advice, but found it deserted. The workmen must have left for the new town to eat a meal or buy food for consumption while living in the portacabin, so I walked down the slope from Kucuk Camii to connect with a path that was just above the river. The walk that followed was delightful because of the early evening sunshine. My shadow stretched behind me a considerable distance. The wide river, the surrounding hills and mountains, the citadel, Eski Palu, the railway with its short tunnels in the rocky outcrops and the most easterly of Palu’s buildings coalesced into views of such beauty that I began to regret that the trip was nearly over. In the long grass, I walked beside a large tortoise. This was not the first tortoise of the trip. At Ulu Kale, two had been mating.

The workmen’s portacabin, Eski Palu.

Between Eski Palu and Palu.

Between Eski Palu and Palu.

Palu.

Eski Palu from Palu.

At a point where roads, a bridge over the river and the railway confirmed I was in an urban environment, albeit one of a town with an official population of not much more than 6,000, I called at a small shop to buy a litre of milk. The young woman with a headscarf recognised me because, at the beginning of my walk to Eski Palu, I had stopped to buy a litre of fruit juice. She welcomed me with a shy smile, but was quite glad when I left. Palu was overwhelmingly on the Sunni side of the street and unknown males and females should not therefore engage in friendly chat. After four days in liberal Dersim where it did not seem to matter what your gender or ethnicity were or whether you had religious beliefs, Palu was a bit of a culture shock, one made more shocking because most of the  women covered their head with a scarf, some dressed from head to toe in a loose-fitting black garment and a few covered everything but their hands, eyes and the top of their nose. Women deserted the town centre as nightfall approached. Most of Palu became a male-only zone of occupation. Earlier, when a few women were in the town centre, they ignored the men just as the men ignored them. How pathetic.

Palu.

My thoughts turned briefly to earlier in the day and the minibus journey from Elazig to Palu. On the right-hand side of the minibus was a seat on its own. In the seat was a woman aged about 20. She had dyed blonde hair, skin-tight trousers, shoes with high heels, a t-shirt tight enough to confirm she was well-endowed and a blushing pink jacket that matched the colour of her large handbag. Had I been in parts of the north-east in and around Trabzon there would have been a good chance she was a prostitute exploited in Turkey’s enormous sex industry, but she was a young Turkish or Kurdish woman seeking to confirm she had no sympathy for the conventions of dress that Sunni piety demanded. Sunni women with headscarves found it harder to take their eyes off her than the male passengers.

Segregation of the sexes was more apparent in Palu than in Elazig or Erzincan, and males in Palu seemed to dictate to girls and women exactly what they could do and wear to a degree more overt than in either of the large cities just identified. As a result, girls and women were constrained by all sorts of rules and requirements imposed on them by their male relatives, and women were expected to work all or most of the day in or close to their homes. In contrast, males could dress as they wished, chat with whoever they wanted (provided the people they chatted with were male), waste time in the tea houses, smoke cigarettes and play silly games such as throwing water at people they knew. Male family members sometimes did the shopping so females would not have to visit the town centre where unknown males might fantasise about forbidden sexual liaisons.

Palu was definitely on the Sunni side of the street, but no male wore a headscarf to cover his hair or ears, or walked in the streets in a loose-fitting black garment that covered him from head to toe. Nor did any male dress so that only his hands, eyes and the top of his nose were exposed to public scrutiny. Nor did any male walk two or three paces behind his spouse, as some women were required to do when out with their husband.

I returned briefly to the ogretmen evi, then walked to the railway station to look at the main building and a few trucks along two sidings. The ticket office was locked. A nearby tea garden was popular with many of the town’s men.

The railway station, Palu.

The railway station, Palu.

Palu was so small that the Hukumet Konagi, the Belediye, the ogretmen evi and the railway station were within 400 metres of one another. As I noted earlier, the Hukumet Konagi was of very recent construction, although it had elements reminiscent of the architectural style that characterised the early years of the Turkish Republic when the nation’s political leaders were keen to create a distinctly Turkish built environment that suggested the republic was modern and progressive. The expressions of modernist progressivism built in the 1920s and 1930s were rather drab and austere in appearance, despite their obvious monumentalism, but Palu’s Hukumet Konagi, while very similar in terms of scale, outline, presence and overall effect, was far too colourful and user-friendly to have won the approval of the serious-minded but intolerant nationalists who could not even bring themselves to concede that about a quarter of the republic’s population was Kurdish. But what did I think of the Hukumet Konagi? I quite liked it, despite its nod toward Disney and/or Las Vegas! I certainly preferred it to all the Ottoman-style mosques that had gone up during the years of AKP ascendency. The mosques made me think of the mock-Tudor semi-detached houses found in the more affluent suburbs of England. Pastiche architecture, the unconvincing recreation of architectural styles of the past, had much to answer for, in the UK as well as in the Turkish Republic.

But for the fruit picked by the manager of the ogretmen evi, I had gone without food since breakfast, so was determined to have an evening meal. I asked someone associated with the ogretmen evi which was the town’s best lokanta and he pointed me toward Teras Café ve Restaurant near the west end of the main street about two or three blocks from the small but interesting pazar. I ascended the stairs to the first floor premises to find a place designed to appeal to female customers, but only males were eating or sipping tea and soft drinks. I ordered lentil soup, one and a half portions of liver grilled on skewers and ayran. The liver arrived with two salads (the salads were the trip’s worst, perhaps because they had been prepared well in advance of my order), bread and a lot of chat with the staff. Overall, the food was better than I thought it would be and I could not leave until consuming two rounds of tea with the staff. As I rose to leave, I saw that ice cream was in the fridge, so I ordered three flavours (the flavours were plain, banana and lemon). This was the worst ice cream of the trip, but because it cost only 3TL and refreshed me, I could not complain. Additionally, I was exactly where I wanted to be, in the mountains and far from the madding crowd.

Teras Café ve Restaurant, Palu.

Teras Café ve Restaurant, Palu.

Teras Café ve Restaurant, Palu.

It was now almost nightfall, but I walked around the pazar hoping to find a tailor who could mend the strap on my large bag, a rucksack that could also be carried like a long holdall. I soon found a tailor who immediately knew what the problem was. He made the repair in about five minutes. In the fashion typical of tailors in Turkey who complete small jobs for rich foreigners who arrive unexpectedly in small towns, he would not accept payment.

The tailor’s shop, Palu.

I went for a last walk around the town centre, which was now completely devoid of girls and women. A few men invited me to consume more tea, but I was almost ready for bed so declined their kind offers. I chatted briefly with a guard on duty at the entrance to the Hukumet Konagi, then bought a litre of fruit juice to take to the ogretmen evi where I heard the voices of only two people in a room on the ground floor.

In bed, I thought about my last walk around the town centre. Small though Palu was, there were at least four shops selling clothes to young men who wanted to look as fashionable as their peers in Istanbul, Ankara or Izmir, and most of the barbers had photos in their windows of young males with hairstyles similar to the ones young males might have in the UK. But young women in the town could not access clothes or hairstyles so fashionable or Western in appearance. Three shops sold the drab and shapeless clothes preferred by pious Sunni women that covered as much of the body as possible and disguised the curves that might inflame male passions, and kuafors lurked in the side streets, but the latter did little more than keep long female hair neat and tidy. Palu’s males could present themselves to the world as modern versions of dandies, but females had to do all that they could to suppress their femininity. Think of Palu’s males as the peacocks and the women as the peahens. But Palu’s women were not even allowed to be the peahens.

In fairness, Palu’s males were very friendly toward an unknown foreign male who appeared from nowhere to subtly disrupt normal routines, but I did not see much evidence that they treated girls or women very well. Not very long ago in the UK, butchers in a halal abattoir in Northallerton were filmed brutally mistreating animals (the film must have confirmed in the minds of many UK citizens that halal meat should be avoided at all times). I wondered how kind they were toward animals.

Palu.

Eski Palu.

Sinclair has information about Eski Palu’s citadel, Ulu Camii, Kucuk Camii, Merkez Camii, Alacali Mescit, Cemsit Bey Mescit and Turbe, a hamam, a church, a bridge and a second turbe.

The bridge and the citadel were some distance from the other structures, half of which were in what was the old town centre. The rest were a short walk to the north along the road leading to the path that led to the citadel. The bridge crossed the river.

My tour of Eski Palu began in the old town centre where I looked at Ulu Camii, Kucuk Camii and the hamam, but I left till later the church because, although not far from the structures just listed, it was on the way to the bridge, which I saved more or less for last. As I walked around, I also saw two cesmes and some old houses in need of tender loving care. The cesmes will probably be restored, but the old houses are likely to be ignored. Everywhere I walked, Eski Palu was awash with wild flowers.

Ulu Camii dated from the 15th or 16th century. There was a small courtyard at the west end of the prayer hall, which had a low roof of logs and mud. The roof was supported by five piers carrying five arcades running north to south. The mihrab, which appeared to date from the 18th century, had four flower-like stars on the wall immediately either side. The minaret had a square base that transitioned to eight blind arches by bevelling the corners. Thereafter, the minaret was cylindrical in shape.

Ulu Camii, Eski Palu.

Ulu Camii, Eski Palu.

Ulu Camii, Eski Palu.

The hamam was better preserved. It had a very large disrobing chamber preceded by a small vestibule. As Sinclair notes:

The vestibule is partly in a tower-like projection from the s. wall and partly in a box-like construction inside the disrobing chamber… From the vestibule one turns left into a separate room lighted by one of two trilobed windows either side of the southerly projection. The disrobing chamber’s dome is supported by a squinch and blind arch construction: the beginnings of the dome above and in the spandrels of the arches are in brick… The long cool room stretches all the way from the n. to the s. wall.

Hot room. The central dome rises from arches at the entrance to the axial domed spaces and from the cut stone diagonal wall above the entrances to the corner rooms. Above the latter the wall is taken up vertically in brick inside a rounded blind arch, which forms the angle between the vertical brickwork and that of the brick skirt sent down from the dome’s base.

The hamam, Eski Palu.

The hamam, Eski Palu.

The hamam, Eski Palu.

The hamam, Eski Palu.

Kucuk Camii really was small (“kucuk” means “small”) in that each wall of its square prayer hall measured only 10 metres internally. Parts of the walls still stood, as did some of the unusually wide cylindrical minaret. The dome, which no longer existed, rested on a brick skirt brought down to squinches. The door leading to the steps within the minaret was beneath the south-east squinch.

Kucuk Camii, Eski Palu.

The citadel provided remarkable views over the surrounding countryside, the river, the bridge, the ruins of Eski Palu and the new town to the west. It had a top platform, the main enclosure, remnants of wall, the scant remains of what appeared to be a church (the church was probably Armenian), a rock with an Urartian inscription and various rock chambers, some of the latter connected by a tunnel. Sinclair refers to local people who believed that one set of rock chambers “was the retreat where the Armenian monk Mesrop (Mashtots) invented the Armenian alphabet” in 405 CE. This would appear to be a legend of doubtful reliability because scholarly research suggests that the alphabet was conceived while Mesrop Mashtots undertook study in Alexandria, then one of the world’s most important cultural, scholarly and scientific centres.

View west from the citadel, Eski Palu.

View south-east from the citadel, Eski Palu.

The tunnel below the citadel, Eski Palu.

The citadel, Eski Palu.

Between the citadel and the old town centre were the other important survivals from the past. Cemsit Bey Mescit and Turbe were being restored. One of the workmen refused me permission to examine the complex, which was most unusual (he probably wanted to assert his authority). However, I could see that the mescit was a box-like square with a thin round drum from which a dome ascended. The turbe was at the north-east corner of the mescit. The turbe would have had a hexagonal ground plan, but two sides had been lost because it was connected to the mescit.

Cemsit Bey Mescit and Turbe, Eski Palu.

Alacali Mescit was partly dug into the hill and its small prayer hall was crowned with a six-sided pyramidal cap. Extending the basic square west were two iwans separated by an arch instead of a wall. The iwans and arch were designed as the portico.

Alacali Mescit, Eski Palu.

Alacali Mescit, Eski Palu.

Merkez Camii dated from only 1874, but, although merely a rectangle running east to west and now devoid of a roof, was quite an unusual structure. Windows were along the south-facing wall but not along the one to the north because of the sloping land, and the now-lost roof would have been supported internally on four north to south arcades of three arches each. The south wall, with the stump of the minaret at its east end, was particularly pleasing to the eye because of the five arched windows and the suggestion that the mescit originally had alternating courses of light- and dark-coloured stone. A courtyard existed along the east wall, but not much evidence for this remained.

Merkez Camii, Eski Palu.

Merkez Camii.

I now walked past the church in the old town centre to the bridge, which had recently benefitted from an extensive restoration programme. Although the stone still looked very new, I could not fault the reconstruction. The bridge had nine arches of differing height and width, and the surface of the road slightly meandered as it gently rose and fell. The bridge, which looked as if it dated from quite early in the Ottoman era, was near a railway bridge and, at one point during my visit to Eski Palu, a passenger train made its way from east to west.

Between the church and the bridge, Eski Palu.

The bridge, Eski Palu.

The bridge, Eski Palu.

The church, which commanded views east along the river and its valley, belonged to the Armenian Monastery of the Mother of God. Sinclair refers to a:

Large, cavernous structure, perhaps built in the early 19^th century,… placed near the e. rim of the platform… Seen from the w., it appears to consist of a high dome bay and an apse, but in reality the church was hall-like. The apse is wide but shallow: short faces bring the e. end to the n. and s. wall of the chancel. Then the dome bay, about one and a half times the length of the chancel. Here, apart from the collapsing of the dome, part of the n. wall and the whole of the s. wall have fallen. The octagonal drum, however, remains: this begins precisely at the base of the dome. Eight windows. The dome’s pendentives rest on four arches, two against the walls, all on four wall piers: thus the n. and s. walls were a shell which bore little stress from the dome. However, they let in much light, by means of three large windows each in their upper halves.

The church of the Monastery of the Mother of God, Eski Palu.

The church of the Monastery of the Mother of God, Eski Palu.

The chancel is roofed by a single vault with e.-w. apex. The remaining bay, w. of the dome, seems to have been similarly vaulted, and to have had the same dimensions as the chancel, but practically nothing is left… Brick is used on the arches, jambs, reveals, vaults, dome, etc.

Décor. Inside, pilasters rise to a thick moulding at the springing line of the chancel vault. Niches in each face either side of the apse. Blind arches echoing the windows in the lower half of the dome’s bay walls. The remains of crude paintings of angels in the e. wall of the chancel, one to each side of the apse. Biblical inscription on apse arch.

Small vestry n. of chancel.

The church of the Monastery of the Mother of God, Eski Palu.

The church of the Monastery of the Mother of God, Eski Palu.

The church of the Monastery of the Mother of God, Eski Palu.

The church of the Monastery of the Mother of God, Eski Palu.

Although some of the Muslim buildings in Eski Palu were being restored, the church was not, and I could detect nothing that suggested it would be restored in the immediate future. Moreover, some of what Sinclair describes above had already been lost.

What was now Eski Palu once had a substantial Armenian population, as did some of the villages near the town, and Sinclair refers to Havav, a village “a few kilometres north”, that had the ruins of three churches in or near it.

Palu was one of the numerous places in what is now eastern Turkey where the massacre and expulsion of Armenians took place in 1915. Here is part of an article that first appeared in “The Boston Globe” in April 1998:

Katherine Magarian saw her father and dozens of other family members slain by invading Turks in the Armenian massacres that began 83 years ago this Friday. In all, the Turkish attempt to wipe out the Armenians lasted nearly eight years and claimed the lives of more than a million people. 20 years earlier, the Turks had also slaughtered thousands of Armenians.

Magarian, who turned 92 on 10th April, survived the murderous rampage by escaping her village with her mother and sister. Separated from her mother, Magarian eventually emigrated, first to Cuba and then to the United States in 1927. She settled in Rhode Island, where she has lived ever since. Magarian spoke recently with “Boston Globe” correspondent Paul E. Kandarian at her daughter’s home. The following are edited excerpts of her remarks.

“I saw my father killed when I was nine years old. We lived in Palou in the mountains. My father was a businessman. He’d go into the country selling pots and pans, butter, dairy products. The Turks, they ride in one day and get all the men together, bring them to a church. Every man came back out, hands tied behind them. Then they slaughter them, like sheep, with long knives.

“They all die, 25 people in my family die. You can’t walk, they kill you. You walk, they kill you. They did not care who they kill. My husband, who was a boy in my village but I did not know him then, he saw his mother’s head cut off. The Turks, they see a pregnant woman. They cut the baby out of her and hold it up on their knife to show.

“My mother and I, we run. They get one of my other sisters, and one of my other sisters, she was four, she ran away. My mother was hit by the Turks; she was bleeding as we go. We walk and walk. I say, ‘Ma, wait, I want to look for my little sister,’ but my mother slap me, say ‘No! Too dangerous. We keep walking.’ It gets darker and darker, but we walk. Still, I don’t know where. The Turks had taken over our city.

“Two, three days we walk, little to eat. Finally, we find my sister who had run away. Then we walk to Harput and I see Turks and want to run, but they are friendly Turks my mother tells me. She say, ‘You go live with them now, you’ll be safe,’ and I was. I worked there, waiting on them, cleaning, but I was alive and safe. But I don’t see my mother for five years. She was taken to the mountains to live and she saw hundreds of dead Armenians, hundreds of them, who had been killed by the Turks, bodies all over.

“Years later, my mother say to the Turks, ‘I want to see my child,’ and they let her come back. She came to the house at night. She did not know me, but I know it was her. Her voice was the same as I remember it. I tell her who I am, she say, ‘You are my daughter!’ and we kiss, hug and cry and cry.

“My mother later heard of an orphanage in Beirut for Armenians and we go there after the Turks kick us out of our country. I spend four years there and, again, I don’t see my mother until a priest gets us together. In 1924, she comes to this country to meet family who left before the genocide. Three times now, I have lost my mother.”

I could find only one internet article about Palu that seeks to establish how many Armenians were murdered in the town, but the figure of 1,580 may refer to the town as well as the villages closest to it. However, I found the following with a Palu link. It derives from “Al Monitor, the pulse of the Middle East”:

The presence of “secret” Armenians in Anatolia has become the subject of a news report in the Argentine press. In an article entitled “The Footprints of Secret Armenians in Turkey”, Argentine journalist Avedis Hadjian writes that people of Armenian origin, estimated to number hundreds of thousands, continue to live in Anatolia and Istanbul under false identities. Hadjian’s research begins in Istanbul’s Kurtulus neighbourhood and then takes him to Amasya, Diyarbakir, Batman, Tunceli and Mus.

According to the report, those who have been hiding their real identity for almost a century reside mostly in Turkey’s eastern regions. They have embraced the Sunni or Alevi sects of Islam and live with Turkish or Kurdish identities.

Still, a tiny community living in villages in the Sason district of Batman province preserves their Christianity. Stressing that no one really knows the exact number of crypto-Armenians, Hadjian says he has seen that many of them are scared to acknowledge their Armenian identity. He quotes a crypto-Armenian in Palu: “Turkey is still a dangerous place for Armenians.” 

The crypto-Armenians who live under various guises do not socialise with those who live openly as Armenians and evade contact with strangers. According to Hadjian, some reject their identities, even though they accept their parents or grandparents were Armenian, and their Turkish and Kurdish neighbours still call them “Armenians” or “infidels”. Others acknowledge their real identity, but say they keep it secret from their offspring.

To Palu and Eski Palu.

Before breakfast, I walked to the ferry terminal to put the previous night’s empty beer bottles into litter bins, then went to eat in the garden of the hotel overlooking the reservoir. The sun was shining. As I waited for the food and tea to arrive, I looked at the roses in the flower beds. A man arrived in the garden and sat a few tables away. Three friends soon joined him for breakfast. Borek replaced the chips of the morning before and there was an excellent jam made with what looked like blackberries. But the jam contained karadut, of black mulberries. Once again, honey was in the comb.

I packed the last few things into my bags, paid the bill, thanked the staff for what had proved a delightful stay and walked to the ferry terminal knowing I could find a seat in one of the five or six minibuses for Elazig that had arrived for the next crossing. However, as we waited for a ferry to arrive (two ferries made the crossing all day long timing their departure so they set off at almost exactly the same moment, but from opposites sides of the reservoir), I chatted with a man driving an almost new Volvo. An Alevi with the usual misgivings about Erdogan, the AKP and Sunni Muslims, he kindly offered me a lift to Elazig where he was undertaking a day’s business. Because Elazig was from where minibuses would get me to Palu, my destination for the night, I agreed without hesitation to join him.

The ferry terminal, Pertek.

The ferry, Pertek.

Once all the motor vehicles had been driven aboard, the ferry set off. Passengers could walk around the deck, which meant that the views of the castle and the reservoir were very good. I was not allowed to pay either my fare or for the car. The crossing took about only 15 minutes and it did not take long to disembark. The drive thereafter was pretty rather than spectacular, but, as the car began to descend into Elazig, we passed a very large but incomplete hotel commanding extensive views over the city and the wide valley beyond.

The ferry and Pertek Kale.

Pertek Kale.

The man who had given me the lift left his Volvo in a car park next to where minibuses departed for the garaj serving towns and villages to the east. Because Palu lay to the east of Elazig, this was the garaj required for the next leg of my journey, so I got into the right minibus just before it set off. Ten minutes later, I asked from where I could find a service to Palu. In the way characteristic of the trip so far, a minibus for Palu was leaving in about five minutes. Perfection.

Most of the journey was of moderate interest scenically, especially as we drove beside another reservoir with rounded hills to either side, but as we made our way into Palu my spirits lifted because the town lay beside the Murat Nehri with high mountains nearby. A steep, meandering descent from a plain confirmed that I would enjoy what remained of the day. Some unattractive urban areas lay between Elazig and my destination, most obviously in Kovancilar where we turned off the main road to Bingol and Mus, but, although Palu was overwhelmingly modern, its situation was stunning and it was small enough not to be much of a blot on the landscape. Moreover, because it lay beside the railway from Elazig to Mus and Tatvan, the small town was worth a detour even without the dramatic scenery and Eski Palu, the latter being the main reason why I was staying overnight.

A search on the internet before leaving home suggested that Palu did not have a hotel, and this was confirmed by men at the garaj in Elazig from where the minibuses departed for the town. However, even small towns in Turkey had accommodation of some sort for visitors whether expected or otherwise, and the men at the garaj had assured me that staff at the ogretmen evi would put me up. Palu’s town centre was so small that the minibus terminated almost opposite the ogretmen evi, so I walked across the road to enquire about a room. One was available because most teachers had departed for home. The term was almost over and exams dominated the working day, but only a few teachers were needed to supervise them. The manager of the ogretmen evi was summoned from the nearby large and very new Hukumet Konagi. He showed me around the facilities (the facilities included rooms where games such as pool were played and a kitchen where breakfast was prepared), then offered me a room with three beds near a smaller room with a sink and toilet (showers and more sinks and toilets were upstairs and easy to access). I said how grateful I was for the room, which had lots of storage space, especially for one person, but was even more amazed when I was told that the room cost only 15TL a night. I said that the cost was very low and was happy to pay more, but more could not be accepted. I was in the middle of the town with the pazar, shops, businesses and lokantas nearby; the railway station was a few blocks to the south-west; and a road leading toward Eski Palu began near the Hukumet Konagi less than 300 metres away. I could not believe my luck. We drank tea, my passport was photocopied and a few personal details were committed to a ledger.

I paid for the room in advance, then the manager led me to a small courtyard where the teachers could sit in the evenings drinking tea or soft drinks as they chatted with friends. From a tree, the manager picked a green fruit not unlike a very small apple, but it had a stone rather than pips inside. I bit into the sour but refreshing flesh, itself firm like an immature apple, and the manager gave me about 20 to take for my walk to, around and from Eski Palu.

The best way from Palu to Eski Palu on foot (there was a way by car, but it was much greater in length and required crossing the river twice) was to follow the railway as closely as possible as it went east. When some of the ruins were in sight to the left, it was necessary to ascend a rounded hill while aiming for one of the surviving minarets. The centre of Eski Palu, which had long been abandoned and replaced by the town in which I was staying overnight, lay among the ruins just mentioned, but the ruins of a citadel were on the massive eruption of rock behind them. Eski Palu deserved to be far better known because its ruins were more extensive and rewarding than the ones at similar but more famous places.

View east between Palu and Eski Palu.

Between Palu and Eski Palu.

There were footpaths for most of the way to Eski Palu. Some of them were directly above the river with the railway to my left, and some were a little to the north with the railway to my right. However, all the paths eventually disappeared among new grass and late spring’s wild flowers. I had to ascend a hillside using one of the minarets to keep me roughly on course. When I arrived on the more level ground that must have once been the centre of Eski Palu, there were the ruins of two mosques, a hamam and a cesme in close proximity and, some way to the east, a ruined church. High above me to the north were the ruins of the citadel. The ruins of the hamam were the most impressive and they were the ones most obviously benefitting from a lengthy restoration programme.

View west to Palu.

I had been looking around the ruins for about 15 minutes when I met six workmen who had been resting nearby before resuming their task of restoring the hamam. One of the workmen kindly encouraged me to enter parts of the ruins not previously examined, then he invited me to join two of his colleagues for glasses of tea in a large portacabin that was where they slept at night. The portacabin was also their daytime retreat when the heat became oppressive or they wanted to eat a meal. They said it was quite a long walk to the citadel, but it could be reached along a gently inclined road that turned into a path with stone steps. However, the effort would be worthwhile because I would enjoy the views, some Urartian remains and a tunnel of unknown origin. I took their advice, but did not realise at the time that the walk would also lead to other ruins associated with Eski Palu.

Kucuk Camii, Eski Palu.

Kucuk Camii, Eski Palu.

Kucuk Camii, Eski Palu.