Midyat

Midyat sits at the centre of Tur Abdin — the mountain of the servants of God — a limestone plateau that has been the heartland of Syriac Orthodox Christianity for some seventeen centuries. Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken in the villages around it.

The old town is built entirely from pale local limestone, soft enough to carve when quarried and hardening in the air, which is why almost every façade, doorway and window frame here is worked with rosettes and interlace.

Nearby stands Mor Gabriel, founded in 397 and among the oldest working monasteries in the world. Midyat is also the centre of telkari, the silver filigree craft that Syriac and Kurdish silversmiths have practised here for generations.