Beneath the still waters of Dicle Dam Lake in southeastern Turkey, an entire neighbourhood of stone houses, a mosque, a religious school and rock-cut tombs has sat largely undisturbed since the reservoir was filled nearly three decades ago. In recent months, a mechanical failure in one of the dam's floodgates, combined with unusually heavy rainfall, caused water levels to drop sharply, exposing the submerged settlement clearly enough for researchers from Dicle University to carry out the first detailed underwater documentation of the site since the dam was completed. What they found was a settlement remarkably intact after decades underwater, offering an unusually clear window into a corner of southeastern Turkey that has been continuously inhabited for thousands of years.
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