Telkari Silver Filigree of Midyat

Telkari is filigree: silver drawn into wire finer than thread, twisted, coiled and soldered into a frame until the finished piece is more air than metal. Midyat has made it for generations, and the craft survives in small shopfront workshops in the old town where the work is done at a bench under a lamp, with tweezers and a small flame, one coil at a time. The vocabulary is narrow and traditional, brooches, earrings, cases, trays and framed panels, and the difference between a good piece and a poor one is the evenness of the soldering, visible if you hold it up to the light. Mardin's bazaar sells the results an hour west.

What you actually see

• The bench work - wire coiled and soldered under a lamp in shopfront workshops.
• Openwork panels - trays and frames where the pattern is really the empty space.
• Midyat's stone quarter - honey-coloured limestone streets that hold the workshops.
• Mardin's bazaar - the retail end, with silver among the copper and the saddlery.

When to go

Spring and autumn; the southeast is punishing from June to September and the stone towns hold the heat well into the night. Workshops keep normal shop hours and close on Sundays. Ask before photographing anyone at the bench. Allow time for the road between Mardin and Midyat, which is slower than the distance suggests.

Honest expectations

A good deal of what is sold as telkari is machine-made or imported, and the hallmark tells you the silver content but nothing about who made it. Prices in Mardin's tourist lanes run well above Midyat's workshops. Summer heat makes daytime walking unpleasant. Fine filigree is fragile and travels badly without a rigid box.

Nearby

Mardin's terraced old town, the plain below it and the monasteries of the Tur Abdin plateau.