Harpoot
The town is famous for its Harput Castle, and incorporates a museum, old mosques, a church, and the Buzluk (Ice) Cave.
Nicholas Adontz proposed a connection with Kharta, a city mentioned in Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions, putatively having developed into Khartberd and later Kharberd.
"[5][7] The medieval geographer Al-Dimashqi wrote that Khartbirt was the name of the city, while Hisn Ziyad referred to the ancient citadel.
[7] Harput is located on a hilltop above a rich, fertile plain historically dotted with villages, about 14 km away from the left bank of the Murat River․[5][8] To its southeast is Lake Hazar (previously known as Gölcük in Turkish and Tsovkʻ in Armenian), the source of the Tigris River.
[5] Historian Hakob Manandian believed Harput to be the site of Ura, the main fortress of the Bronze Age Hayasa-Azzi confederation.
A town grew around the fortress, with a primarily Armenian and Syriac population that came from nearby villages as well as the city of Arsamosata further east.
Around 1085, a Turkish warlord named Çubuk conquered Harput and was confirmed as its ruler by the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I.
The Great Mosque of Harput was built opposite the citadel by either Çubuk or his son (attested as the ruler here in 1107).
[11] William of Tyre wrote that Joscelin I, Count of Edessa (Jocelyn) of Courtenay, and King Baldwin II of Jerusalem were prisoners of Belek Ghazi in Kharput's castle and that they were rescued by their Armenian allies.
Later, Imad ad-Din Abu Bakr, an Artukid prince who had previously attempted to usurp the throne of Hisn Kayfa, gained control of Harput.
[14] An American missionary school was established near the citadel, providing an education mainly for Armenians.
[11] The town's Armenians had their own educational centers as well, consisting of five church schools and the Smpadian coeducational academy.
The Anti-Taurus range lies some forty miles [64 km] to the north in full view from the ridge just back of the city.
[12]Emigration of Armenians and Syriacs from Harput had already begun in the 1850s, the main destinations being other cities of the Ottoman Empire, the United States and the Caucasus.
[5] Harput was located in a remote and isolated region of the Ottoman Empire, and consequently few outsiders visited it.
[18] The Armenian inhabitants of Harput and the surrounding area were deported and massacred starting in June 1915.
[19] Since Harput was a major transit point for deportees from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, a large number of Armenians from other regions died in the area.
[16][19] This prompted the American consul Leslie Davis to dub the Harput Vilayet “the Slaughterhouse Province.”[15] He estimated that 10,000 Armenians had been massacred and buried in mass graves around Lake Hazar alone.
Over time, Harput was turned into a suburb of Elazığ, and facilities were created for tourism and recreation.
The Armenian population was reduced due to the harsh treatment by the Janissaries ruling the region.
[2] Leslie A. Davis became consul of Harput in 1914 and left in 1917 upon the cessation of Ottoman Empire-United States relations.
