CHAPTER IV.
Instead of dividing the items of information which I collected at Diarbekir during this and two succeeding visits, I shall sum up the whole in the present chapter, and shall endeavour to lay it before the reader in as interesting a form as possible.
Diarbekir, the ancient Amida, and still known to the Turks as Kara Amid, or Black Amida, on account of the colour of the basaltic rock in the vicinity from which the town is built, stands on the western bank of the Tigris and on the extreme border of Asia Minor. It does not appear to be mentioned in history before the fourth century of our era, when according to the Syriac chronicle of Edessa, as given by Assemanni, it was enlarged by the emperor Constantius, a.d. 349. During the numerous and protracted wars between the Romans and Persians, it became a place of considerable importance, the possession of which was several times warmly contested by the two rival powers who successively lost and regained it.
The principal relic of ancient art extant at Diarbekir is near the Great Mosque, to which it now forms a court, and is supposed to have been a Christian Church. It consists of an open area measuring 230 ft. by 115 ft., the eastern, western, and part of the northern walls of which are still standing. Along these is a double row of Corinthian pillars, one above the other, the lower measuring 18 ft. and the upper 10 ft. in height, both surmounted with rich friezes, upon which some fine ornamental Cufic inscriptions have been engraved. In the eastern wall, which appears to have served as the screen, is a fine Grecian
