Nearly 30 children’s graves were found during the excavations carried out in the Seljuk Square Cemetery, which is the largest Islamic cemetery in the world and located in the Ahlat district of Bitlis. The works in the historical Seljuk Cemetery, which includes tombstones that exceed 4 meters in length and each of which is a work of art with writings and shapes on it, are carried out under the chairmanship of Mehmet Kulaz, the Head of Seljuk Square Cemetery Excavation, Doctor and Faculty Member.
Regarding the work carried out in the cemetery, Academist Kulaz said, “In stream improvement work, the surface soil was removed and the stones were restored, but in the excavations made after the surface soil was removed, we found many graves. Of these, about 30 children’s graves were found. We did not come across such a large number of child graves in other areas of the cemetery in the other areas. We are trying to determine whether the children died as a result of an earthquake or an epidemic disease. We estimate that they could have died as a result of epidemics in the 13th and 14th centuries. We continue to investigate the findings regarding both the excavations of children’s graves in this region and the causes of their deaths. Anthropologists continue to work on the bones we obtained. For this reason, I hope we will soon be able to say something definite about the causes of these mass deaths or because there are more deaths,” he said.