Konya-Karaman Plain

The Konya-Karaman Plain is a plain in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey, associated with the Konya and Karaman Provinces. It is a flat plain at a height of 900–1050 m that covers the majority of Konya Basin and constitutes the main part of the Central Anatolian Plateau.

Konya-Karaman Plain is a flat plain at an altitude of 900–1050 m that covers the majority of the Konya Basin. It constitutes the main part of the Central Anatolian Plateau. The plain is dominated by the Çarşamba river (Çarşamba Çayı), which forms a delta in its centre.^[1] Çarşamba Çayı originates in the Aygibi waterfalls at around 1600m and flows North to Sorkun and Eastward to the village Apasaraycık, as well as near Belkuyu. It is dammed at Apa.^[2]

The plain once contained a 4200 km² large lake, which has been dated to the Last Glacial Maximum.^[3] The limestone plain is subject to karstic processes, mainly sinkhole formation (called obruk in Turkish) especially in the Obruk Plateau. The latter separates the Konya Plain from the Tuz Gölü Plain.^[3]

The plain is one of the driest areas in Turkey with less and less precipitation due to climate change.^[4] Starting in the 1990s in relation to groundwater overuse from irrigation, an increasing number of sinkholes have formed resulting in groundwater depletion.

To alleviate the drought, a major irrigational Konya Plain Project has been planned since at least 2006,^[5] was launched in 2012. The project includes 14 irrigation, three potable water and one energy investments, including the Blue Tunnel Project and the Bagbasi Dam.^[6] About 20% of Turkey's agricultural land is within this region with only about 7% of Turkey's water.^[7]

The Konya-Karaman Plain did not possess resources which prehistoric and early historic human communities there required, such as timber, metal, chipped stone, and ground stone, which pushed its inhabitants to develop procurement networks in as early as the 9th millennium BC, with these networks continuing to exist in the Bronze and Iron Ages.^[8]

The Konya-Karaman Plain was also one of the driest regions Anatolia during the Holocene, especially during the later Holocene corresponding to the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, which would have forced the local populations to develop sophisticated water management practices.^[9]

The earliest appearance of irrigation there possibly dates to the 3rd millennium BC, which in turn led to the spread of settlement throughout the steppe region of the plain when human settlements had previously been restricted to the alluvium of the rivers.^[10]

The Çarşamba river which dominates the plain was referred to as the Ḫūlaya River (Hittite: 𒀀𒇉𒄷𒌋𒆷𒅀^[11]) at the time of the Hittite Empire, while the surrounding lands were called the Ḫūlaya River Land (Hittite: 𒌷𒀀𒇉𒄷𒌋𒆷𒅀^[11]).^[12]

The plain is of considerable archaeological interest, including an important neolithic archaeological site of Çatalhöyük is located within the plain.^[13]

Oriental Institute archaeologists unearthed a lost ancient kingdom dating to 1400 BC to 600 BC near the Türkmen-Karahöyük site in 2020, which might be connected to Tarḫuntašša and its king Hartapu. A document written in Luwian hieroglyphs that describes Hartapu's victory over Phrygia was discovered in 2019 by researchers from the University of Chicago and the Konya Regional Archaeological Survey Project.^[14][15][16]