The UNESCO Site That Never Was

The UNESCO Site That Never Was

Journalist Durrie Bouscaren looks at the flooding of Hasankeyf, a town on the Tigris inhabited for thousands of years, by the Ilisu Dam, and asks what its loss reveals about how societies decide which heritage to protect and which to sacrifice. Large dams bring electricity, irrigation and state control, she notes, but around the world they also destroy archaeological sites and uproot poorer communities.

Because most of the people displaced by Ilisu are Kurdish, and the waters cover places important to Kurdish history, the project carries a cultural and political weight that the government denies. Bouscaren follows the decades-long campaign against the dam by residents, archaeologists, ecologists and the Kurdish diaspora, and the failed attempts to secure UNESCO status and a European court ruling.

She ends with residents moved into new housing with serious defects, and archaeologists racing to salvage what they can before the water rises.

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