It is expected that the 5,000-year-old Van city architecture and culture, especially in the south of Castle, will illuminate the history, while the excavations at the old locality of Van city, castle and mound continue.

The excavation studies reveal the remains of the Grand Mosque which is the most monumental structure of a thousand 300 years, Urartu Quarter, and the first societies living in mud-brick houses built five thousand years ago.

“We are revealing the remains of the earliest societies living in mud-brick houses built 5,000 years ago”

Erkan Konyar, director of the Van Region History and Archeology Center, informs İLKHA about excavations at Van Castle said that their work continues in three locations. We are carrying out these studies with lecturers and students from 12 different universities in Turkiye. We work at 3 locations. The area where the old Van City Turkish Islamic structures are located, Van Castle citadel and we continue to work on the old Van mound that we are here. The work in the mound is about 5,000 years of Van architecture, work was done to make the cultures open. We are also revealing the vast Urartu neighborhood here and the remains of the earliest societies living in mud-brick houses built under our city five thousand years ago.”

“We are revealing the urban texture of the 19th-century Ottoman period”

Saying that they had found a rock tomb in their excavation work last year, Konyar said that they reveal the 19th-century Ottoman city texture in the area south of the castle this year.

“As we know the citadel part, there are some drilling studies in the areas of suspicion in the structure of Urartu itself. We had a rock tomb last year. We continue to work in the same area in that frame. In addition to this, documentation and drawing work continues in the area south of the castle. There we are also revealing the urban texture of the 19th-century Ottoman period. Especially we are going to work on public buildings. DAKA, DAP support our work in that region. In addition to this, we continue our animation and documentation work in the same region. What sort of social structure was there from the 19th century Van and how was the Ottoman urban texture? We are re-sculpting on the visuals, which are the findings supported by archaeological excavations.”

“We give more importance to Old Van”

"Our work in the old city of Van has been going on since 2013," said Konyar, who stated that DAP and DAKA, which are supporters, are more interested in the old city of Van and that a great majority of their work is done here. “We opened an area of about 5 thousand square meters. We do not open up a lot of space to avoid too much damage. It's supposed to be a renovation project that we can continue because the excavation itself is a damage.”

ILKHA