Keban Dam

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Keban Dam

The Keban Dam is one of the 21 dams of the Southeastern Anatolia Project of Turkey.

The Keban Dam was the first of the large dams to be built on the Euphrates River, being completed in 1974. It resulted in the flooding of the Euphrates for 50 km north of the dam, and of 100 km of the Murat river valley to the east. The Murat joined the Euphrates some 7 km north of the dam.

The point where Murat and Karasu Rivers join and Murat River and its tributary Peru are now inundated by the Keban Dam Lake. [1]

[edit] Archaeological work

From 1968-1974 the Euphrates and Murat rivers were the scene of intense archaeological survey and excavation in advance of flooding. The lake formed by the dam is mostly narrow, hemmed in by deep rock valleys. No archaeological sites were found in the survey of these valleys. The Murat valley opens up in two places, and it is here that archaeological (and modern) settlement was concentrated. The Aşvan region, covering about 115 km², contained eleven archaeological sites, all relatively small. The largest, Aşvan Kale, covered about 0.9 ha in total; this and three other sites were excavated by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara: Taşkun Mevkii, Çayboyu and Taşkun Kale. The other broadening of the valley, at the Altınova plain, was a well-defined area of thick and fertile alluvial soil. Archaeological survey located 36 sites, of which one, Norşuntepe, covered 8.2 ha, being by far the largest site in the region. It was excavated by a German team led by Harald Hauptman. The Altınova plain contained other relatively large mounds, including Tepecik (3.4 ha), Korucutepe (2.0 ha), Değirmentepe (2.0 ha) and Körtepe (1.7 ha).