Erzurum, Nov 17 () - Excavation works carried out in the eastern province of Erzincan’s Kemah district have unearthed a millennium-old Turkish neighborhood.
Atatürk University History of Art Department Professor Hüseyin Yurttaş said after discovering Bey Mosque and bath, the team had focused on civil architecture and continued excavations by looking at Evliya Çelebi’s “Book of Travels.”
“We unearthed a nearly 1,000-year-old neighborhood dating back to the Turkic period” he added.
Excavations started in 2010 at the Kemah Castle in the Kemah district with the participation of Atatürk University’s Yurttaş, Professor Haldun Özkan, Professor Süleyman Çiğdem, Assistant Professor Zerrin Köşklü, academic Lütfü Kındığılı and Gazi University’s Nurşen Özkul Fındık as well as archaeology and art history students.
Yurttaş said unearthing a civil architecture like the one in Kemah, the capital of the Mengujekids, established after Turks settled in Anatolia, was important in terms of the history of Turkish settlement.
The professor added further excavations would give more details about the neighborhood “because Kemah is one of the most important Turkish settlements in the region.”
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