Guide
The Birkleyn caves lie in the village of Örtülü in the Lice district of Diyarbakır. Birkleyn means rising or swelling, and the caves are also known as İskender-i Birklin. They appear on the list of registered archaeological conservation sites prepared by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
The caves are karstic. Some branches of the Birkleyn, or Bermal, water — one of the tributaries of the Tigris — run through them.
They were first investigated in 1862, and the fullest study of them rests on the visit made by C. Lehmann-Haupt and W. Bleck in 1898–99. In 2004 a team led by A. Schachner of the University of Munich visited them again, documenting the Assyrian reliefs and inscriptions and examining all the archaeological remains in the surrounding area.
The low temperature and damp of the cave make it unlikely to have been used as a dwelling, but Iron Age pottery and other finds of that period point to a use of some other kind.
