Harran

Harran is one of the oldest continuously settled places in the world, named in Bronze Age texts and known through antiquity as a centre of the moon god Sin, later holding an Islamic university whose astronomers and mathematicians - Thabit ibn Qurra among them - did work that mattered. What survives on the ground is a mound, long stretches of the city wall, the ruins of the Grand Mosque with its distinctive square minaret, the university remains and a castle at the edge. The beehive houses are the other half: conical mud-brick domes built without timber, a form used here for centuries because the plain has no wood, cool inside in extreme heat and repaired with fresh mud as needed. Most residents have moved to concrete houses and the domes are now used for storage or shown to visitors, with a cluster kept as a cultural centre. The plain is flat, treeless and among the hottest inhabited places in Turkey.

What you actually see

• The beehive houses - conical mud-brick domes in the village.
• The square minaret - the Grand Mosque's unusual tower.
• The city walls and mound - the ancient site around the village.
• The plain - flat Mesopotamian country to the horizon.

When to go

April to May and October to November. Summer temperatures here regularly exceed forty-five degrees with no shade - it is genuinely dangerous rather than uncomfortable.

Honest expectations

Most beehive houses are no longer lived in and the ones shown are set up for visitors. Persistent selling and requests for tips are common. There is essentially no shade on the site.

Nearby

Şanlıurfa is 45 km north; Göbekli Tepe and Karahantepe are in the same province.