KURE CHURCH 1

X: 41.415874 Y: 37.716866 Z: 470.51 m

The church is located within the borders of the Kesmeköprü village of Batman city center and is known as the Kure Church in the region. The church is located 0.50 km northeast of the Hasankeyf Bridge, on the rocks to the north of the Tigris River. Kesköprü village is located 32km southeast of Batman city centre. There is a lot of damage in the church, which was carved into the rock.

The church measures 19.00x15.00 m. There are cross motifs made by scraping on the north, northwest and northeast walls of the church. Some of these cross motifs have been erased due to the melting of the rock. The church was built quite high and has a representative vaulted superstructure in the north-south direction. The entrance to the church is located on the west. The upper part of the entrance section within the church was built with arches. Just east of the entrance is the bema section. The entrance of the bema has a representative arch just like the entrance to the west of the church. The bema section, which has a round plan feature, has an apse. There are a total of five niches in Bema. There are two venues in the north of the bema. Place 1, located just north of the bema and east of the church, is named as place no. 2, which is located to the north of the church. There are two niches in the room no 1. There are three niches and two lighting niches in the room no 2.

Three tombs were built to the east of the rocky area to the south of the church (tomb no. 1), to the eastern wall (tomb no. 2) outside the entrance to the west of the church, and to the floor of the nave (grave no. 3) just east of the entrance.