Conical domed dwellings house architectural wonders

The unique conical domed houses of ?anl?urfa's Harran district draw visitors' attention for their architectural style, which keeps the houses cool in summer and hot in winterWhen you live in a place where the mercury can sometimes push 45 degrees during the summer, it behooves one to find a way to keep your dwellings cool. The residents of Harran, on the border with Syria, managed to do so long before the invention of air conditioning, constructing conical abodes on the baking plain that succeeded in keeping residents cool during the hotter summer months.

"The most important reason why these unique houses were preferred in the past is that it is excessively hot in summer. This architecture style keeps the houses cool in summer and prevents cold in the winter," said Mehmet Önal, a professor who has been leading excavations in Harran, whose history dates back to the earliest recesses of human existence.

"Twenty rooms in a house can be heated with one stove in a room. Nobody lives in these houses now. People prefer concrete structures but they are important elements of our cultural heritage. Tourists come to the district to see these houses. We need to protect this unique architecture," Önal said. 

The unique conical domed houses, which were built on a cone- or square-shaped structure with a superposition technique, are symbols of the district. Each dome stood for a room in the house and symbolized the wealth of the people that used to live in the household. 

Rose oil, earth and egg yolk were used in the mortar of the houses, which are cool in summer and hot in winter thanks to their architectural structure and materials. The five-meter-high houses were built with bricks and become narrower to the top. The exterior...