The main gate of the historical Harran Palace, discovered in southeastern Turkey’s Şanlıurfa province thanks to two years of excavations, has been unearthed.
Harran district is one of the world’s oldest settlements on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, and excavation works have been ongoing for six years at the site.
Located 44 kilometers (27 miles) southeast of Şanlıurfa near the Syrian border, the district was an important Mesopotamian trade center on a road running south to Nineveh in modern Iraq. Inhabited since 6000 B.C., it also served as the capital of the Assyrians and Umayyads.
Led by Mehmet Önal, who is also the head of the Archaeology Department at Harran University, the excavation team of this old settlement worked for two years to reveal the main gate of the 900-year-old palace.
“We completely unearthed one of the two known gates of the historical palace. The gate, about 7 meters (23 feet) high, is made of basalt stones,” he said.
