ling shot (verb): To be slung or flinged.
Two columns rise from Urfa’s citadel.
In the center of Urfa is a citadel. On the top of the citadel are two columns. From between these two columns, Abraham was slingshot.
That is the story anyway.
People, like great novels, have themes.
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Urfa is a different town by day.
The night before, when we filed though Urfa’s bazar and dergah, it was a cacophony. Buyers and sellers haggled. Families socialized and ate. Hollering, honking, munching, braying and wailing filled the sultry air. Every space was contested. Tanner was wide-eyed. “Welcome to the Middle East,” I had shouted. Dir balak! “Be careful!”
The squad crosses the road. They are intent on the march, despite a lack of herd and shepherd. That some are speckled, spotted, or streaked makes me smile. After all, this is the village of Haran, the exilic home of Jacob the trickster (see his shenanigans in the text of Gen 30:25-43). It is a place where goats, sheep, and humans have co-existed for millennia.
I stand in a paved courtyard. Surrounding me is a cluster of dwellings constructed of mudbrick (or adobe). A discovery like this is not unusual in a region where wood is scarce and temperatures are extreme. What is odd is the way in which the overhead space is closed. Bricks are stacked in concentric circles that rise upwardly from thick stub walls. They culminate in a tiara made of stone that crowns a tiny chimney hole. I marvel. These are tepees of mud, sedentary versions of the pastoralist’s tent.
It is hot. The breeze blowing across the Mesopotamian plain carries no refreshment, only dust.
I do what comes naturally in this part of the world: I recline in the shade of a goat-hair tent and sip hot çay. The tea is served in a tulip glass lacking a handle, so I sip carefully but quickly. I hang on the rim to avoid burning my fingers. My companions do the same. The glasses dance.
We approach the church that Gagik built. Except Gagik didn’t really build it. He commissioned an architect-monk named Manuel to do the hard work. Of the 10th century complex erected on the island of Aghtamar, the only structure that survives is the Church of the Holy Cross. We are fortunate. Manuel’s labor is a triumph of medieval Armenian architecture.
The beautiful princess lifted the light and he swam for it. The island where Tamar stood was distant, but with the light as his guide, the peasant boy had direction. On this night, however, the forbidden relationship was discovered. The beacon was smashed to the ground. Disoriented by the sudden loss of signal, the lad swam on and on in the dark. At last he became exhausted. He began to slip beneath the waves. He cried out her name, “Agh Tamar!” These words, his last, were carried away by the wind.
Abdallah Baghdadi rests on a white plastic stool. He leans back against a display case inside his store that faces Azzahra Street. The case behind him is nearly empty. On top of it rest a few baby Jesuses, Christmas bells, a crèche, assorted pendants, and stick pens. I lean forward on my stool and ask him what he thinks.
The ridge abruptly rises near the lake’s edge. It is more than a half mile long and hundreds of feet high. The flat ground extending from its base (undoubtedly a flood plain from more remote times) renders the promontory all the more stunning. Walls and towers cling to the rock like barnacles. I wonder why these man-made constructions were thought necessary. The plunge to the flat is so vertical, so awful, that the ridge ably protects itself.
The air is thick where the Bendimahi meets the Gulf of Ercis. Deprived of energy (and all hope of escape), the mountain stream creeps reluctantly across the floodplain before slipping under the waves of Lake Van. Slender reeds bend to watch the demise. It is not a unique spectacle. Gravity forces every stream in the region to the same end. The basin simply has no exit. Van is an endorheic sea, a marine cul-de-sac. I lean forward, ponder this fact, and look in vain for the terminus. Between the mud, reeds, and island clumps I cannot tell where river ends and sea begins.