Sanliurfa

Şanlıurfa

(shän'ləo͞or`fä), formerly

Urfa

(o͞or`fä), city (1990 pop. 278,516), capital of Şanlıurfa prov., SE Turkey. It is the trade center for a productive agricultural region and one of the most rapidly growing cities in Turkey due to its position in the midst of a large-scale irrigation development, with significant textile-related industries. The city was called EdessaEdessa
, ancient city of Mesopotamia, on the site of modern Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It emerged in the 4th cent. B.C. as Orrhoe, or Arrhoe, and was later named Edessa by Seleucus I of Syria. From c.137 B.C. it was the capital of the independent kingdom of Osroene.
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 until its incorporation in the Ottoman Empire in 1637. Its once large Christian population—mostly Armenian—suffered severe massacres in the late 19th cent. Göbekli TepeGöbekli Tepe,
Neolithic site in SE Turkey, c. 9 mi (15 km) NE of Şanlıurfa, that dates to c.11,000 B.C. or earlier. Although previously known, it was first recognized as a Neolithic site in 1994 by German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who began excavating there the
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, a Neolithic archaeological site, is to the northeast.