|
|
Article: Cities in the sand.(discovery of ancient cities and cultures)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- July 10, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
FORMER TOWN OF BELKIS, TURKEY --Yakup Kaya sits on a folding chair on a dirt road overlooking a lake with no name. Near the shore, Kaya can see the top of one pistachio tree poking through the water. It is just about all that remains of Belkis, the town where he was born 30 years ago and where his parents were born a generation before that.
"This dam, I don't think it's a very good thing," says Kaya, using a cigarette to gesture toward the giant concrete wall that has turned this stretch of the Euphrates River into a rippling blue pool several miles across. "It's good for irrigation, yes. But our garden is under water, with all our trees. And it's hard to grow ...