I have long been fascinated with the regional facial tattoos, called deq. I had seen them in Turkey amongst both Arabs and Kurds, especially in the province of Urfa, but it wasn’t until the conflict in Kobane that I realized the tradition naturally extended across the border to Syria. On both sides of the border people are connected by language, tribe, and ethnic identity, so it makes sense that they also share other cultural attributes.

I was curious about particular aspects of the deq tradition, like why they are almost exclusively found on women above the age of 60. Why and when did people stop the practice? Also, I wanted to understand the lines and shapes and why they are