The “Sunken Plain” of the Turks, Çukurova was, in antiquity, Cilicia Campestris, a great plain hemmed in by the Taurus, Anti-Taurus and Amanus Mountains and drained by the Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers.
Important for its agriculture since Neolithic times, it is increasingly being swallowed up by the industrial development running all the way from Mersin, through Adana to Ceyhan, the terminal for an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan.
This is the thistle-filled and eagle-thronged area so vividly described by the Turkish novelist, Yaşar Kemal (1923-2015). If you don’t know his work, make a start with İnci Mehmet, translated into English by his wife as Mehmed My Hawk.
