"The mystery of Mardin was hidden for thousands of years. There was a castle in the city. There was a city under the castle, a castle under the city, and a completely different city under that castle. And at the bottom of all the cities was a hidden garden. No matter what you did in this city, everything would turn into a mystery and become a secret. Everything would become a fairy tale. There used to be magical people in this bazaar. They seemed to be standing still, but they were not here, they used to wander in the fairy tales of Mardin's lower layers. People saw them as standing still, but they were flying like clouds.". The first time I met him, an installation was taking shape with "EGE ECZA 82 ENTRIES" gathered in front of his workshop in Mardin Bakırcılar Bazaar, which he named "The Endless City". We were all watching in admiration and amazement, and with great curiosity... The most mysterious and shamanic of Mardin's storytellers, EBU BURAK, also known as the storyteller... His real name is Tacettin Toparlı. A master of under glass and Shahmeran... Since 2016, "Mardin Museum Storytellers' Gathering" has traditionally been organized free of charge for one week every year at the Mardin Museum, on rooftops, in Mardin houses and in all social spaces. The storytellers bring the lost tales of Mesopotamia to the surface and take the young and old alike to the land of secrets behind Mount Kaf. Abu Burak said, "The living are dead. The real dead are the living. There is no day, there is no night. Once upon a time, once upon a time..." he sometimes begins his tales. "I didn't start the story of Shahmeran to finish it, but I am exploring it to finish it," he says, telling the Persian origin "legend of Shahmeran" from the Mesopotamian Plain and painting Shahmerans under glass in Mardin and all over the world... "Human beings are ungrateful, they cause enormous harm to others for their small benefits," he says, and the story begins... Thousands of years ago, in Mesopotamia, Jamshab and his two friends, who were woodcutters, went for a walk in the mountains one day. After a while, the weather turned bad and it started to rain heavily. They took shelter in a nearby cave. As they were walking around in the cave, one of them tripped on the ring of a trapdoor. They were excited, thinking they had found a treasure. It was a very heavy lid and they lifted it with great difficulty. Underneath, they found a well full of honey. They lowered Jamsab down into the well inside the cave to get the honey out. His two friends, who wanted to take the last honeycombs and send them up with the bucket at the end of the rope, left him in the well, closed the lid on him and ran away. At first asking for help, then despairing, after a while Damsab saw a person oozing from the bottom of the well. Poking and prodding with his knife, he dug the well and came out into a wonderful garden where thousands of snakes lived. In this garden seven floors below the ground, snakes called Meran were living in peace. The queen of these snakes was "Shahmeran", meaning the king of snakes, with a beautiful young woman on top and a snake underneath. Shahmeran never aged, and it was believed that when she died, her spirit would pass to her daughter. According to the legend, Cemşab, the first person to see Shahmeran, fell in love with her and she fell in love with him. And they lived in peace and happiness in the land of snakes for many years. Shahmeran taught Jamshab things about medicine and healing that no human could ever know. Years later, Jamsab said that he missed his family and his city very much and begged to leave. "I had a fate with a human being before, he betrayed me." "Human beings are ungrateful, they cause enormous harm to others for their small benefits," he said. Nevertheless, he took his word not to tell anyone about him and let him go. Cemşab gathered everything that was light in burden and heavy in cost. Soon the sultan of the country was stricken with an incurable disease. The wise vizier told the sultan that he would be cured only if he ate a portion of Shahmeran's meat. Since no one knew where Shahmeran was, gold and diamonds were promised as a reward, then treasure. When again no one knew, the vizier thought of the sultan's beautiful daughter. This time they offered the sultan's daughter as a prize along with the treasure. Whoever could tell the location of Shahmeran would get the sultan's daughter. Seeing the princess in the town square, Jamsab immediately fell in love with her and showed the sultan's men where the well was. They found Shahmeran and brought him to the palace. Shahmeran did not offend Jamsab at all and said "boil me in an earthen pot, make the vizier drink my water and feed my meat to the sultan". The vizier died, the sultan recovered and made Cemşab a vizier and married him to his daughter... The beautiful human beings of Mardin who, like Abu Burak, my storyteller, who finds and re-seeds the forgotten stories buried somewhere in life and makes them flourish, my heart master, my storyteller who pierces the matter and looks at the meaning, in the steep city of impossibility, in Mardin; the beautiful human beings of Mardin who, like Shahmeran, teach smiling in their pain, tolerance in the greatest of deceptions, tolerance and loyalty with tales... I love your existence and your colorfulness... We are grateful for your tree of love that has grown from that barren land to the infinity of the sky and even branched out here... The branches of that love will be safe with us forever...