The town of Hasankeyf, about 80 kilometres upriver from the Ilisu dam, is 12,000 years old and one of the most ancient, continually inhabited settlements on the globe, once a staging post on the famed Silk Road.

When the dam’s reservoir is filled, much of Hasankeyf, along with some of its ancient monuments and Neolithic caves carved out of the banks of the Tigris, will be submerged under more than 30 metres of water.