Ilısu Dam

Boncuklu Tarla (Beaded Field), located in the Ilısu neighborhood of the southeastern province of Mardin's Dargeçit district, sheds light on human history with its 12,000-year-old past.

The newly opened Ilısu Prof. Dr. Veysel Eroğlu Dam will contribute 3 billion Turkish Liras to Turkey's economy annually, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Nov. 6.

The Turkish president on Nov. 6 inaugurated the Ilısu Dam in the country's southeastern province Mardin.

Its total water storage volume is 11 billion cubic meters and can generate 1,200 megawatts of hydroelectricity.

Energy production at the Ilısu Dam in southeast Turkey has reached full capacity, Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said on Dec. 24, adding that it is expected to contribute 2.8 billion lira ($366 million) a year to the economy.

Turkey on May 19 commissioned the first tribune of the power plant at the Ilısu Dam on the Tigris River in the southeastern Mardin province. 

"The wind of peace, brotherhood and prosperity that will blow from the Ilısu Dam will be felt in these lands for centuries," President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told the ceremony which he attended via a video link.

Within the scope of Ilısu Dam rescue excavations, the missing pieces of a historical play set, which was found in 2012 in the southeastern province of Siirt's Başur Mound, have been unearthed.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has dismissed an appeal against Turkey concerning the construction of the Ilısu dam in the southeastern Batman province's archeological site of Hasankeyf.

Works have been initiated to move the historic Artuklu bath to a new place in the new settlement of Hasankeyf, to prevent it from remaining underwater with the construction of the Ilısu Dam in the southeastern Turkish province of Batman. Click through for the story in photos...

All historic artifacts in the ancient town of Hasankeyf, which will be submerged by the floodwaters of Turkey's fourth biggest dam, Ilısu, in the southeastern province of Batman, will be moved this year. 

A settlement from 11,500 years ago has been unearthed in the Hasankeyf Mound on the Tigris River's coastline in the fifth stage of archaeology works at the ancient town of Hasankeyf in the southeastern province of Batman, which has been initiated with the Ilısu Dam HES project protection and rescue works of the cultural heritage.