[2] The Hevsel Gardens are first mentioned in Aramean chronicles dating from the ninth century BC, the settlement of Diyarbakır on the hill above having been established earlier than this.

In 866 bc, the city was besieged by the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II and when it fell, the gardens were destroyed as a form of punishment.

The fortified city has been of importance in the region during the Hellenistic period, and during the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman Empires up to modern times.

[4] Nowadays, about one third of the gardens is used for growing poplars and the rest for cultivation of a great range of produce; cabbage, spinach, lettuce, radish, green onions, parsley, watercress, eggplants, squashes, tomatoes, peppers and beans, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, figs, mulberries and nuts.

Extraction of water higher up the Tigris Valley has reduced waterflow in the river and decreased periodic inundation of the floodplain.