ISTANBUL, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen stone blocks bearing Syriac inscriptions have been uncovered during a routine road paving project in Türkiye's southeastern province of Mardin, as experts said they offer new insights into the region's multicultural heritage in upper Mesopotamia.
The stone blocks were discovered on Tuesday during municipal ground-leveling work in the Midyat district, local authorities said. Following the discovery, the Mardin Museum Directorate and gendarmerie teams secured the site for protection and documentation.
Turkish archaeologist Nezih Basgelen, head of the Cultural and Natural Heritage Monitoring Platform, told Xinhua on Wednesday that the find is significant from an epigraphic perspective.
Initial assessments by museum experts suggest the artifacts may date to the 12th-14th centuries. However, Basgelen believed that certain characteristics of the script point to an earlier period.
"The inscriptions are written in Estrangelo, one of the earliest forms of Classical Syriac, which may indicate a Late Antique origin, possibly between the 4th and 5th centuries AD," he said.
Basgelen added that the stone blocks may have belonged to a historical Syriac church structure, possibly the Mor Aday Church, which is referenced in local oral history.
Syriac, a classical language of the Aramaic family, played an important historical role as a literary and scholarly language in the region. It is now classified by UNESCO as an endangered language.
Midyat, located in upper Mesopotamia, is known for its stone architecture and Syriac cultural heritage. ■