Hasankeyf: endangered monument

This is an update about the endangered monument of Hasankeyf to a fieldwork note extract about my negative heritage tourism in northern Kurdistan/south-eastern Turkey, which I posted on Human Rights Archaeology yesterday, but it's important enough to reproduce here.

Good bad news (as reported in "World Monuments Fund unveils 2008 watch list" by James Murdock on the 6th of June 2007 on the Architectural Record): Hasankeyf has been listed on the World Monuments Fund 2008 World Monuments Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. It was listed, partially accurately, under 'Sites Threatened by Economic and Development Pressures', as it is, 'where a dam that will be used for half a century will flood a site that was already ancient when Alexander the Great conquered the known world'.

The walled city of Famagusta in northern Cyprus, however, was listed under 'Sites Threatened by Conflict', as it is 'now neglected as political deadlock over the island’s sovereignty continues'. Hsankeyf is not merely threatened by 'economic and development pressures', because the Ilisu Dam is not merely an economic or developmental tool: the dam is part of Turkey's persecution of the Kurdish community; Hasankeyf is 'threatened by conflict'.