An Archaeology of the Industrial Landscape: The Industrial History and Heritage of the Belemedik–Hacıkırı Railway Construction Corridor

This article interprets the Belemedik–Hacıkırı section of the Baghdad Railway that crosses the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey as a railway construction landscape. While previous scholarship has largely focused on individual engineering structures or the political economy of the railway, the construction corridor has rarely been analysed within the framework of industrial archaeology as an integrated industrial system. Drawing on archival sources, historical photographs and field investigation, the study reconstructs the spatial and organisational structure of the corridor, including tunnels, viaducts, service roads, temporary narrow-gauge systems and the German construction settlement at Belemedik. The analysis demonstrates that the mountainous section functioned as a coordinated production landscape linking engineering solutions, labour organisation and logistical infrastructure. By examining the material remains of railway construction at corridor scale, the article contributes to recent industrial archaeology approaches that interpret infrastructure projects as landscape-scale industrial systems. It concludes by proposing an Industrial Archaeology Route as a framework for the interpretation and conservation of this important railway construction landscape.