Viranşehir

Viranşehir is a market town serving a cotton-growing area of Şanlıurfa Province, in southeastern Turkey, 93 km east of Şanlıurfa city and 53 km north-west of the Syrian border at Ceylanpınar. In Late Antiquity, it was known as Constantina or Constantia (Greek: Κωνσταντίνη) by the Romans and Byzantines, and Tella by the local Syriac population.^[1]

History

The name Viranşehir means the ruined city (Old English: mierran, Iranian languages: Viran) and it has indeed been destroyed repeatedly in the course of history. According to tradition, the tombs of Job and Elijah (Elias) are to be found in the nearby village of Eyyüp Nebi.

According to the Byzantine historian John Malalas, the city was built by the Roman Emperor Constantine I on the site of former Maximianopolis, which had been destroyed by a Persian attack and an earthquake. During the next two centuries, it was an important location in the Roman/Byzantine Near East, playing a crucial role in the Roman–Persian Wars of the 6th century as the seat of the dux Mesopotamiae (363–540).^[1] It was also a bishopric, suffragan of Edessa. Jacob Baradaeus was born near the city and was a monk in a nearby monastery.^[1] The city was captured by the Arabs in 639.^[1]

Modern city

Thanks to the income from cotton Viranşehir is one of the fastest-growing towns in Turkey, the population having more than doubled from 57,461 in 1990 to 121,382 in 2000 (census figures). (The urban population is 89,940 as of 2009.[1])

The Mayor of Viransehir, Leyla Güven, was detained in December 2009 under Turkey's anti-terror legislation.