Travel with us beyond classical Türkiye, with its monumental, Greco-Roman ruins and Aegean sea backdrops. Find more history–and prehistory–amid the beauty of southeastern Türkiye, on a route less traveled, between Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, and Diyarbakır, set along the banks of the famous Tigris River that helped form the cradle of civilization. Along the way you will see the world’s earliest monumental temples, dating back over 10,000 years; explore excellent archaeological and mosaic museums; and enjoy diverse architecture, from beehive-style mud houses to rock tombs, and early monasteries to mosques. Enjoy local cuisine, perhaps especially during our two-night stay in Gaziantep, a city famous across Türkiye for its cuisine; and explore bazaars and workshops with local artisans and craftspeople. Our AIA lecturer is intimately familiar with this region’s deep history and diverse cultures.

Highlights include:

– Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe, two prehistoric sites dating back to 9500-8000 B.C., suggesting that complex societies and monumental architecture existed well before the advent of agriculture
– The world-famous, 19-foot-tall statues and burial sanctuary of King Nimrod (Antiochus I Theos), at more than 7,000 feet above sea level in Mount Nemrut National Park
– Karatepe-Aslantaş National Park, Türkiye’s first open-air museum, with well-preserved Hittite ruins and statues dating from the 8th century B.C.
– Dara, one of the most important trade centers of ancient Mesopotamia, featuring rock tombs dating back to the 5th century A.D.
– The flooded ancient city of Hasankeyf (flooded in 2020 for dam construction), whose artifacts were removed to the Batman Archaeological Museum that we will visit, and some of whose important structures we will visit at a new, nearby location
– Diyarbakır’s city walls, the second-longest on Earth (after China’s Great Wall), which contain a castle and a medieval church
– Fascinating museums, such as the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, the world’s largest mosaic museum, with exquisite Hellenistic Greek and Roman mosaics; and the Haleplibahçe Mosaic Museum, a domed structure protecting a Roman villa complex that was saved from a 2006 urban construction project
– An optional, post-tour extension to Lake Van, including visits to Van (Tushpa) Castle, center of the Kingdom of Urartu in the 9th to 6th centuries B.C., and the ruins of the Urartian fortress of Sarduri-Hinili at Çavuştepe