Birecik
| Birecik | |
|---|---|
 Birecik
|
|
| Coordinates: 37°01′30″N 37°58′37″E / 37.02500°N 37.97694°ECoordinates: 37°01′30″N 37°58′37″E / 37.02500°N 37.97694°E | |
| Country |
 Turkey
|
| Province | Şanlıurfa |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Mehmet Faruk Pınarbaşı (AKP) |
| • District Governor | Ozan Balcı |
| Area | |
| • District | 789.72 km2 (304.91 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 450 m (1,480 ft) |
| Population (2012) | |
| • Urban | 48,706 |
| • District | 91,605 |
| • District density | 120/km2 (300/sq mi) |
| Website | www |
Birecik (Greek and Latin: Birtha, Βίρθα; Arabic: al-Bīrah البيرة; Kurdish: Bêrecûg, Ottoman Turkish: بيره جك), also formerly known as Bir and during the Crusades as Bile, is a town and district of Şanlıurfa Province of Turkey, on the River Euphrates.
Built on a limestone cliff 400 ft. high on the left/east bank of the Euphrates, "at the upper part of a reach of that river, which runs nearly north-south, and just below a sharp bend in the stream, where it follows that course after coming from a long reach flowing more from the west".
Birecik Dam Cemetery is an Early Bronze Age cemetery near Birecik. It was used extensively for about 500 years at the beginning of the third millennium BC. More than 300 graves were excavated here in 1997 and 1998. The site was discovered during the building of the Birecik Dam as part of the GAP project.
The cemetery was used between 3100-2600 BC.
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica identified Birecik with ancient Apamea or its suburb Seleucia and described it as opposite Zeugma, with which it was connected by a bridge of boats. At the same time, it added that "the place seems to have had a pre-Seleucid existence as Birtha, a name which revived under Roman rule". Later discoveries have shown that the identification with Apamea and its Zeugma (the word zeugma meant junction and referred to a junction of roads at a point where a pontoon bridge crossed a river) is false: Bali, some 17 kilometres upstream is now seen as the site of Zeugma, and there may have been no bridge of boats at Birtha/Birecik until the crossings at Zeugma and at Tell-Ahmar (further down) lost popularity. These, rather than the crossing at Birecik/Birtha may therefore be what the 1911 publication said "was used from time immemorial in the passage from North Syria to Haran (Charrae), Edessa and North Mesopotamia, and was second in importance only to that at Thapsacus, by which crossed the route to Babylon and South Mesopotamia."
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Wikipedia