Artuklu Palace 1.48

Artuklu Palace or Artukid Palace or Artuqid Palace was the palace of Diyarbakır branch of the Turkish Beylik and dynasty of Artukids who ruled eastern Anatolia and Jazira in the 12th and 13th centuries and situated in the present-day İçkale neighborhood Diyarbakır urban zone within the compound of Diyarbakır City Walls. Built during the reign of the Bey of Artuklu Nasreddin Muhammed and partially excavated in the 1960s, the main body of the palace is today still buried under a mound.This palace was also where, as his father before him, the groundbreaking Arab Muslim scholar, inventor, and mechanical engineer Al-Jazari had worked for 30 years and was the place, inspiration and context of many of this inventions and devices. Surrounded by gardens, rich in amenities as well as in decorative and artistic elements and also in eccentricities, itself perhaps inspired by a tradition dating back to the Umayyad palace of Khirbat al-Mafjar in Jericho, the palaces of the Artukids provided models for the Mameluks later. There are further Artukid palatial residences in Mardin, Hasankeyf and Palu whose remains stand, but this one in Diyarbakır is usually referred to as the "Palace" of the sons of Artuk. The palace was used as a prison in the beginning of the Ottoman rule until it fell into decay and gradually disappeared under the present-day Virantepe mound.