|
©The Archaeological Settlements of Turkey - TAY Project
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bendmurat Baraji |
|
|
For site maps and drawings please click on the picture...  |
For photographs please click on the photo...  |
|
Type:
|
Water Construction |
|
Altitude:
|
m |
|
Region:
|
Eastern Anatolia |
|
Province:
|
Igdir |
|
District:
|
Merkez |
|
Village:
|
Halfeli |
|
Investigation Method:
|
Survey |
|
Period:
|
Middle Iron Age |
|
|
|
  |
|
| It is reached after the villages of Halfeli and Gündo, south of the Igdir Plain, 23 km south of Igdir. It is 2100 m high above the sea level, on the skirts of the Mount Huma. The lake covers an area of about 1-1.5 squarekilometers, strecthing in the north-south direction. The lake waters are a result of combination of snow, rain and spring waters. The dam has two different body walls. One of them strecthes to the east of the dam while the other extends on the northeastern end. The east wall stretches in the north-south direction into a narrow and rocky strait made of andesite. However, a new wall was erected 35 to 40 years ago before the earlier wall was destroyed and demolished. This new wall constructed 3 to 4 m further to the west helped us to obtain information about the construction technique and thickness of the earlier Urartian wall. The section joining with the rocks survived, even a little, to the present day. The Urartian wall is 2.5 m in width, and 76 m in lenght. The andesit blocks used for the walls were obtained from the local andesite deposits. The waters expelled from the dam towards the east, even today, have been used for irrigating cultivated fields. The northeast wall was also erected strecthing in the east-west direction into a rocky strait like the eastern wall. The lake was silted up to a great extent because of the soil layer conveyed by rain and flood waters. Speicmen of such dams with two separate walls representing a state-of-art hydraulic engineering are also found at Rusa (Lake Kesis) and Gövelek in the Van Region. These two dams were built during the reign of Rusa II. Thus, it is believed that the Bendmurat Dam should have been built during the same period. |
| Location: |
| Geography and Environment: |
| History: |
| Research and Excavation: |
| Stratigraphy: |
| Small Finds: |
| Remains: |
| Interpretation and Dating: |
